In The Last Week, Mount Merapi Has Issued 160 Lava Falls

Mount Merapi (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Mount Merapi on the border of Central Java and the Special Region of Yogyakarta emitted 160 lava avalanches during the 17-23 March 2023 observation. During the week, hot clouds of avalanches were also observed coming out of Merapi twice to the southwest with a sliding distance of 1,300 meters.

"Lava fall was observed 160 times to the southwest or upstream of Bebeng River and Boyong River with a maximum sliding distance of 1,800 meters," said Head of the Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development Center (BPPTKG) Agus Budi Santoso as quoted by ANTARA, March 25.

He said that based on morphological analysis from the Deles5 camera station, Tunggularum, Babadan 2, and Ngepos, morphological changes were observed in the southwest dome of Merapi triggered by avalanches and hot clouds of avalanches.

"There is no significant change to the middle dome," he said.

Meanwhile, based on air photos on March 13, 2023, the volume of the southwest dome was measured at 1,686,200 cubic meters and the middle dome was 2,312,100 cubic meters.

The intensity of Merapi's seismicity over the past week, according to him, is still high.

During that period, Mount Merapi was recorded to experience two hot cloud earthquake avalanches, one deep volcanic earthquake, 41 shallow volcanic earthquakes, 201 multi-phase earthquakes, one low-frequency earthquake, one gust earthquake, 821 avalanches, and five tectonic earthquakes.

The deformation of Mount Merapi which was monitored using EDM this week showed a shortening distance of 0.03 cm per day.

BPPTKG still maintains Alert or Level III status which was set since November 2020. The current potential hazards are in the form of lava avalanches and hot clouds falling, namely in Woro River as far as 3 km from the summit, and Gendol River as far as 5 km from the summit.

In addition, the potential danger is also in Kali Boyong as far as 5 km from the summit, as well as Bedog River, Krasak, Bebeng as far as 7 km from the summit. Meanwhile, the ejection of volcanic material in the event of an explosive eruption can reach a radius of 3 km from the summit.