Indonesian authorities have been warning local villagers in East Nusa Tenggara Province about increasing volcanic activities in the area in recent days. Mount Hobalt, briefly erupted on Tuesday

Friday, August 23, 2013

Indonesian authorities have been warning local villagers in East Nusa Tenggara Province about increasing volcanic activities in the area in recent days. Mount Hobalt, briefly erupted on Tuesday

Indonesia Warns of Rising Volcanic Activity in East Province

By I Made Sentana

JAKARTA, Indonesia—

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Mount Rokatenda volcano, shown here on Aug. 12, killed six people on Palue island two days earlier. Authorities are now watching two other volcanoes, subsea Mount Hobalt and and Mount Ili Werung, in the same eastern province.
“The people around the areas should continue to practice caution” despite there not having been fresh volcanic activity on Wednesday, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
The agency reported on Tuesday two volcanoes in the East Nusa Tenggara Province have shown “increasing activities.” The volcanoes are subsea Mount Hobalt and and Mount Ili Werung.
It noted Mount Hobalt erupted Tuesday morning, spewing cloud as high as 6,560 feet above the sea level for around two minutes.
“Visually, the water near the volcano turned yellow and bubbly,” the agency said.
Meanwhile, Mount Ili Werung, located on the southern part of Lembata Island, started rumbling just before dusk Tuesday for about an hour and a half.
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Underwater Volcano Briefly Erupts in NTT

By SP/Yoseph Kelen on 4:36 pm August 21, 2013.

Mount Hobalt, an underwater volcano off the coast of Lembata island, East Nusa Tenggara, briefly erupted on Tuesday but did not cause any damage, officials and residents said.
“Based on information received from the head of the Center for Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation [PVMBG], the mountain erupted Tuesday morning,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said.
Sutopo called on villagers living around the volcano to remain alert, but added that there was no need for residents to be evacuated from the area.
“The PVMBG is closely monitoring the volcano,” Sutopo said.
Petrus Bote, who heads the district’s disaster mitigation office, said that district authorities were preparing for the possibility of a larger eruption by bolstering stocks of emergency relief supplies and increasing manpower around the area.
“Many people, including fishermen, saw the peak of [Mount Hobalt] surface for a few minutes,” Peter said on Tuesday.
He said that a similar phenomenon took place when the volcano last erupted in May 1999.

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