14 DAY TRIAL // On Saturday night (January 4), the Mount Sinabung volcano, in North Sumatra, Indonesia, erupted more than 50 times. The volcano has been inactive for the past 400 years, before reactivating in 2010, and then again in September 2013. Thousands of villagers have already been evacuated from surrounding areas, Indonesian authorities report.
Mount Sinabung is a stratovolcano that formed at the boundary between the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, roughly 12,000 years ago. It is located around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Indonesia's famous Lake Toba supervolcano, which has been inactive for millions of years.
The last recorded eruption for this volcano before present day was in 1600 AD. After remaining quiet for a little over 400 years, the mountain erupted again on August 29, 2010, after which it subsided once more. Additional eruptions occurred in September and November 2013, followed by the new series of blasts over this weekend.
Like all of its neighbors, Mount Sinabung is part of the Sunda Arc that extends beyond Indonesia, and which is produced at the contact point between the Eurasian and Indo-Australian tectonic plates. These volcanoes are all part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the same system that also includes the San Andreas Fault Line in California.
At this point, only one of the four craters on Mount Sinabung is active, authorities say. Even so, after the recent series of 50 eruptions, thousands of villagers from nearby settlements were evacuated to prevent loss of life. Rocks and other debris were thrown 5 kilometers (3 miles) away from mountain.
Yesterday morning (January 5), the volcano's gas and ash cloud was reaching an altitude of nearly 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) above the caldera. Authorities have designated a safety zone extending 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) around the volcano.
With the help of soldiers, nearly 20,000 people have been evacuated from the areas around the volcano since eruptions resumed in November 2013. At this point, Mount Sinabung is just one of the 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia, geologists say.
The Pacific Ring of Fire that includes this volcano is home to 90 percent of the world's earthquakes and volcanic activity, the Daily Mail reports.