Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau Volcano Erupts Again

Indonesia‘s famous Anak Krakatau volcano has erupted again, shooting ash, smoke, and lava into the sky. 

Per the Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation, the volcanic island between Java and Sumatra was continuously erupting Friday night into Saturday morning. People as far as the country’s capital of Jakarta—about 90 miles away from the island—claim to have heard “loud thunder-like” noises when the volcano started to erupt at around 9:58 local time. Residents closer to the activity reported thick clouds of ash that eventually fell on their homes. 

This is the same volcano that had a massive eruption in 2018. That explosion caused a tsunami along the coasts of Sumatra and Java that killed over 400 people. However, there was a silver lining after the traumatic incident. The magnitude of the 2018 eruption was so great that the volcanic island is now only a fourth of its previous size. As a result, scientists believe that any future tsunami caused by the volcano would be dramatically smaller than the one that ravished the country 16 months ago.

So far, no casualties have been reported, and a level 2 alert is in place, the second-highest on a scale of four. Anak Krakatau (which translates to “Child of Kratakau”) is the offspring of the infamous Krakatau volcano. When Krakatau erupted in 1883, it resulted in a period of global cooling.