Ash explosions from Bromo and Anak Krakatau in Indonesia

If the eruption at Kirishima wasn’t enough to keep us occupied, Bromo in the Tengger Caldera has ramped up its activity significantly. Last fall, the volcano had a few explosive events that disrupted air travel near the volcano but all of Bromo’s activity was overshadowed by Merapi. Earlier this year, we got some snaps of the area near Bromo from Dr. Philipp Ruprecht, showing both the ash fall from the previous eruptions and the strong plume from the vent. It appears that new ash eruptions have started to issue from Bromo – and along with these lava flows cam enough ash to divert flights headed towards Bali. The Darwin VAAC has issued an ash advisory for a large swath of the Indian Ocean to the south-to-southeast of Bromo up to ~5.5 km / 18,000 feet. It sounds from the reports that internationa flights are not likely to resume for at least another 24 hours but domestic flights are unaffected. The description of the eruption sounds like strombolian-style explosions that have reached ~200 meters, but the details are scant.

In a little older news, another Indonesia volcano has been erupting explosively over the last week as well. You can see a bunch of up-close-and-personal video of eruptions at Anak Krakatau from last week (January 20), showing the strombolian rumblings at the volcano. PVMBG, the volcano monitoring body in Indonesia, has Bromo at orange alert status and Anak Krakatau at yellow. Indonesia definitely continues to be a busy place for erupting volcanoes (which is no great surprise).

UPDATE: Here is a video of the current activity at Bromo (link courtesy of Eruptions reader Sherine)

{Special thanks to Eruptions readers Kirby and Gabrielle for links in this post.}

Top left: An ash covered vista near Bromo in Indonesia