Friday Morning, North Sulawesi Space Mountain Issues White Smoke

Gray white smoke came out of the crater center of Mount Ruang in Sitaro Regency, North Sulawesi, Friday (3/5/2024). (PVMBG)

Gray thin white smoke rose as high as 200 meters from the crater center of Mount Ruang located in Sitaro Regency, North Sulawesi (Sulut). "Visual Mount Ruang on May 3, 2024, at 06:28 WITA, gray smoke was under weak pressure with a height of 200 meters," said Hendra Gunawan, Head of Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) in a report received quoted by ANTARA, Friday, May 3. Hendra said that although the volcanic activity and seismicity of Mount Ruang currently tend to slope, his party still embeds level IV status. or alert to the volcano with the type of strato. So far, from 00:00 to 06:00 WITA, the number of shallow volcanic earthquakes was recorded 5 times, volcanic earthquakes in just 1 time, tectonic earthquakes were far away 2 times, and there were no eruption activity.

On Thursday, seismic data recorded by the Taliwang seismic station were recorded as an eruption earthquake, 29 shallow volcanic earthquakes, 5 deep volcanic earthquakes, 2 local tectonic earthquakes, 10 distant tectonic earthquakes, and 1 continuous tremor earthquake.

PVMBG asks residents around Mount Ruang not to enter a radius of six kilometers from the center of the active crater of Mount Ruang. Meanwhile, residents who live in the Tamulandang Island area are within a six-kilometer radius so that they are immediately evacuated to a safe place outside the six-kilometer radius. Then, residents on Tagulandang Island, especially those living near the beach, should be aware of the potential for incandescent rock, hot clouds, and tsunamis due to the eruption material that enters the sea or the collapse of the volcano's body into the sea.

Mount Ruang was visually and instrumentally observed from the volcanic observation post located in Tulusan Village, Tagulandang District, Sitaro Islands Regency, North Sulawesi. Prior to the eruption in 2024, Mount Ruang had experienced an eruption that occurred in 2002. At that time, Mount Ruang experienced an explosive eruption accompanied by hot clouds and resulted in land and settlement damage and required population evacuation.