Mount Anak Krakatau in Indonesia erupts

• An eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Anak Krakatau volcano caused airports to suspend flight operations on September 6.

• The 157 metre high Anak Krakatau is located in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands.

• Mount Anak Krakatau has been on alert level 3, the second-highest, since July 2.

• Anak Krakatau produced a fountain of lava and booming sounds that could be heard up to a few hundred kilometres away.

• Airports halted operations after ash was detected in their airspace, disrupting thousands of flights.

• A December 2018 eruption of Anak Krakatau triggered an underwater landslide that set off a tsunami in Banten, West Java province and Lampung province that killed at least 430 people.

• Anak Krakatau, which means “child of Kratakau”, is the offspring of the famous Krakatau, which erupted in 1883 and killed more than 36,000 people in a series of tsunamis. The monumental eruption in 1883 triggered a period of global cooling.

• Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)