“Yesterday, the rainfall level was high, causing all the material from the top of the mountain to come down. But today, so far, there’s no rain, so it’s relatively safe,” he said.

 

No casualties have been reported and there has not been any immediate disruption to air travel.

 

The 3,676-meter volcano erupted at 2.46pm local time on Sunday. Footage shot by local residents showed Mt. Semeru spewing a giant cloud of gray ash high above its crater, which later engulfed the mountain and surrounding rice paddy fields, roads and bridges, and turned the sky black. A video shared by the Environment Ministry on Twitter showed a pyroclastic flow of lava, rocks and hot gasses gushing down the mountainside.

 

People fled the eruption on motorcycles, with almost 2,500 people forced to evacuate, authorities said.

 

Semeru erupted last year killing more than 50 people and displacing thousands more.

 

The eruption, some 640 km east of the capital, Jakarta, follows a series of earthquakes in the west of Java, including one last month that killed more than 300 people.

 

An archipelago of 270 million that sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth.

 

With 142 volcanoes, Indonesia has the largest population globally living in close range to a volcano, including 8.6 million within 10km , Reuters reported.