Mount Sinabung on Indonesia's Sumatra island has spewed hot smoke and ash high into the air on Wednesday, in its latest violent eruptions. According to the local disaster agency, the volcano has erupted repeatedly in recent days, pumping hot gas clouds up to 3 km into the sky.
Reports said clouds of smoke from the molten lava covered the sky above a school in North Sumatra province, where children were playing outside in the yard. However, the authorities insisted that the school is safe as it is located outside a 7km restricted area around the volcano.
Mount Sinabung is a highly active volcano on Sumatra Island. It has been erupting almost continuously since 2013. Despite it, the villagers continue their precarious existences in that area by putting on masks to go shopping as ash falls from the sky, and tending to their crops.
In recent years, more than 2,000 families have been evacuated from around the rumbling volcano. The authorizes said that many people will soon be relocated to new villages after their lengthy stays in temporary shelters.
Indonesia is the home to around 130 active volcanoes due to its position on the "Ring of Fire", a belt of tectonic plate boundaries circling the Pacific Ocean and eruptions regularly disrupt air travel around the archipelago.
Sinabung is regarded as one of 129 active volcanoes in the country. The volcano roared back to life in 2010 for the first time in 400 years. After another period of inactivity it began erupting again three years later.
In May 2016, seven people were killed in one of Sinabung's deadly eruptions. The victims were farming within the "red zone" when they were consumed by pyroclastic clouds. The "red zone" is referred to an area which is four kilometres from Sinabung, declared off limits by government authorities for safety reasons.
Another 16 people had died during a particularly fierce eruption in 2014. Sinabung remains at the highest alert level.
