NEW DELHI: Flash floods, mudslides, and a dangerous stream of warm lava from Mount Marapi, an active mountain in Sumatra, Indonesia, resulted in the deaths of at least 43 people and left 19 missing over the past trip. A mixture of water and rock bits that quickly flows down mountain slopes, enters river hills, and spreads across large areas is called “lahar,” also known as “lahar” in Malay.
The Indonesian crisis response agency shared afflicting images and videos showing densely buried streets and fields close to Mount Marapi. According to a record in the Independent, this cold lava can travel at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour and travel as far as 60 kilometers from the mountain. It poses a major threat to everything it crosses.
Lahars are regarded as being more dangerous and fatalistic than normal lava flows, according to the US Geological Survey. They have the ability to crush or bury about anything, and they can entice people in areas where more volcanic activity is at risk by destroying infrastructure like bridges and roads.
Even a tiny dust or volcano eruption could melt much snowcap to form devastating lahars, according to Brittany Brand, chairman of the Boise State Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute at Boise State University. She claimed in an interview with Newsweek that” a small explosion of dust or lava may evaporate enough of that snowcap to create destructive lahars.”
The area generally experiences flash floods and landslides, made worse by its proximity to the Pacific Ring of Fire, which has 127 active volcanoes, more than any other nation in the world. In the 21st century, the Mount Marapi has erupted 11 times, with the most notable volcano in December sprinkling dust up to 3, 000 feet into the atmosphere and dust covering towns and villages.
Indonesian government continue to avert people who live within a 4.5 miles of Mount Marapi’s crater to avoid areas there. This is a worrying situation. This new action highlights the continued volcanic threat that millions of people in Indonesia’s huge archipelago of over 17, 000 islands are facing.
