Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, located on the island of Flores, discharged an 11km high column of ash on Tuesday.
Dozens of flights to and from Indonesia’s resort island of Bali have been cancelled after a volcanic eruption in the country’s east spewed an enormous ash cloud into the sky.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki in the country’s East Nusa Tenggara province erupted late on Tuesday, sending an 11km (6.84-mile) column of ash into the sky, according to Indonesia’s geological agency.
It raised the alert level to the highest of its four-tier system and said another eruption on Wednesday morning produced a smaller ash cloud.
No casualties have been reported. However, local authorities evacuated residents from several villages near the volcano as a precaution.
Indonesia’s National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure, or BNPB, said tremors and eruptions were still recorded on Wednesday morning.
Residents and tourists should avoid activities within 7km (4.35 miles) of the volcano’s crater, the geological agency warned.
At least 32 flights to and from Bali were cancelled as a result of the eruption, Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport said.
The airport website showed routes from Australia, India and Singapore among those affected.
“Due to volcano activity of Lewotobi Laki-Laki in East Nusa Tenggara, several flights at I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport are cancelled,” airport operator Angkasa Pura Indonesia said in a statement.
Several domestic AirAsia flights bound for Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores, where Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki is situated, were also cancelled, as were four Singapore Airlines flights between Bali’s Denpasar airport and Singapore.
Qantas’s low-cost carrier JetStar also scrapped some of its morning flights from Bali to Australia.
“Forecasts show the ash cloud is expected to clear by later tonight. As a result, this afternoon’s flights will be delayed to operate later this evening,” JetStar wrote in an update on its website.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government decided to close the Fransiskus Xaverius Seda airport in Maumere until Thursday “to ensure the safety of the passengers”, Airnav, an airport operator, said in an Instagram post.
Nine people died while thousands had to be evacuated after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted in November.
Due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
