Asia

Flights to Bali canceled after volcano eruption that releases clouds of ash

Schoolchildren in the Indonesian village of Lewolaga run during the eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Thursday, November 7.

() – Several Australian airlines have canceled flights to and from the popular Indonesian holiday island of Bali after an erupting volcano spewed a plume of hot ash stretching miles into the sky.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki, on the remote island of Flores, has been active since a series of eruptions last Monday They killed at least 10 people, covered cities and towns in volcanic ash and forced tens of thousands of residents to flee.

“Due to volcanic ash caused by the eruption of Mount Lewotobi in Indonesia, it is currently unsafe to operate flights to and from Bali,” it said. Qantas in a statement published on its website this Wednesdayadding that he would monitor the situation closely.

Jetstar said in a statement Wednesday that all flights to and from Bali’s Denpasar Airport were canceled until at least 2 p.m. local time this Wednesday.+Depending on ash cloud conditions, Jetstar said it planned to add two More return services between Australia and Bali this Wednesday afternoon.

Virgin Australia also canceled all flights between the Australian cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and Denpasar in Bali, according to its website.

Hadi Wijaya, director of Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation, said volcanic materials, including smoking rocks, lava and hot, thumb-sized fragments of gravel and ash, were spewed 8 kilometers from the crater on Friday, he reported. AP.

Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago with 270 million people, has more than 120 active volcanoes, more than any other place in the world. It is found along the Ring of Firea 40,000-kilometer arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean.

In 2018, the eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia caused it to collapse into the sea, causing a tsunami that hit the coasts of the main islands of Java and Sumatra, killing more than 400 people.

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