Schoolchildren Flee as Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki Erupts Again Within a Week

Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted again on Thursday, November 7, in an even more powerful incident than the one that killed nine people and injured dozens just three days earlier.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the latest eruption.

The 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) volcano on the remote island of Flores erupted 11 times on Thursday, sending massive columns of ash into the sky. The largest of these reached an altitude of 8,000 meters (26,240 feet), according to Hadi Wijaya, head of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.

Photos from the scene showed residents and schoolchildren fleeing in panic on Thursday morning, just days after another eruption on Monday, November 4.

Some locals described the latest eruption as the largest they had ever witnessed from Lewotobi Laki-Laki.

“This is the first time I saw this big eruption since I’ve been living in Lewolaga village,” said Anastasia Adriyani, 41, who lives outside the exclusion zone.

“I was cooking at the community kitchen (for evacuees) and when it happened, I ran back home. I was very scared.”

The volcano had shown reduced activity since Monday’s deadly eruption, which killed nine people and injured 64 others.

Monday’s eruption affected over 10,000 people across 10 villages. Approximately 4,400 villagers were forced to seek refuge in makeshift emergency shelters after the eruption, which destroyed seven schools, nearly two dozen houses, and a convent on the predominantly Catholic island.

Volcanic debris, including smoldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-sized gravel and ash, was ejected up to 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the crater.

During visits to the devastated areas, officials discovered craters as large as 13 meters (43 feet) wide and 5 meters (16 feet) deep, where rocks had fallen during the eruption, with several craters found in locations such as a destroyed school.

“It shows a difference in characteristics from the previous eruption in January,” said Wijaya, head of the volcanology center. He added that the earlier eruption mostly unleashed volcanic materials around the peak, followed by lava flows.

“We are still analyzing the change of Lewotobi’s eruption character, which will be used by the government to determine a safe relocation site for residents,” Wijaya said.

He stated that his agency has requested the local government of East Nusa Tenggara province to close the only road connecting Maumere, the island’s largest city, to the neighboring district of Larantuka, as it passes through the volcano’s danger zone.