The volcanic ash spread to as far as Tobelo, the capital of North Halmahera district.Ternate, N Maluku (ANTARA News) - Mount Gamkonora, in North Maluku province, erupted on Wednesday afternoon, forcing hundreds of residents living on the volcano`s slope to evacuate to safer areas.
"The volcano sent thick smoke up to 3,000 meters into the sky, so its alert status was raised to the third highest level," the head of Mount Gamkonora`s monitoring post, Jufri, said.
Frequent tremors were felt in nearby areas. However, it could not be predicted whether the volcano, which last erupted in 2008, would have a strong or weak eruption.
The evacuees returned home on Wednesday evening because the eruption was not dangerous.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Mount Dukono, which is also in the same province, spewed volcanic ash after showing signs of decreased activity in the past couple of weeks.
"The volcanic ash spread to as far as Tobelo, the capital of North Halmahera district," head of the North Halmahera district natural mitigation board (BPBD) Yudhi H. said on Wednesday.
Yudhi said the district government had implemented a number of measures to handle the impact of volcanic ash. The authorities distributed masks among local people, including students and motorcycle taxi drivers, he added.
"So far, the villagers living on the slope of the volcano have not evacuated. We will keep monitoring the activity of the volcano in order to examine the possibility of the volcano to continue spewing ash, which may endanger human health," Yudhi said.
According to a report from the volcano monitoring post, the volcano showed signs of increased activity in the past few days. However, the volcano has still been kept on level II alert.
(S012)
Editor: Ella Syafputri
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