Jakarta - A volcano on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island erupted without warning on Thursday, shooting ash about 1 500 metres into the air, an official with the country's volcanology centre said.
Mount Soputan volcano, which lies in North Sulawesi province and had experienced increasing activity since August, erupted at 8.15am (01H15 GMT), spewing columns of ash into the air, said Agus Budianto, chief of volcano monitoring for the West Java-based centre.
"There isn't any lava flow yet but we are still monitoring because the crater is still cloudy," he said, adding that the volcano was only at a Level 1 alert and thus nearby villages had not been ordered to evacuate.
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"There is no danger for the people around the volcano," Budianto said, adding that the volcano last erupted in December 2006.
Thursday's eruption came as a surprise as officials said the volcano, which lies about 1 300 kilometres north-east of Jakarta, appeared relatively calm in recent days.
The volcanology centre continues to have a Level 4 alert - meaning an imminent eruption - for the Mount Kelud volcano in East Java province, which has forced thousands of people within a 10-kilometre radius to evacuate.
Mount Kelud last erupted in 1990, killing dozens of people, and is regarded as the most active of Indonesia's numerous volcanoes. The Indonesian archipelago lies within the "Pacific Ring of Fire," where seismic activity such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common. - Sapa-dpa
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