Ash from the eruption blanketed several nearby villages and towns. -AP
Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano spewed avalanches of hot clouds in eruptions overnight Thursday that forced about 250 residents to flee to temporary shelters and left ash blanketing nearby villages and towns.
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The volcano on the densely populated island of Java unleashed clouds of hot ash at least seven times just before and after midnight and fast-moving pyroclastic flows, a mixture of rock, lava and gas, travelled up to five kilometres down its slopes, National Disaster Mitigation Agency's spokesperson Abdul Muhari said on Thursday.
The rumbling sound could be heard several kilometres away.
He said 253 people moved to temporary shelters in Glagaharjo and Umbulharjo villages in Yogyakarta special province and in Central Java's Klaten district because of the dangers on Merapi.
Ash from the eruption blanketed several nearby villages and towns and no casualties were reported, Muhari said.
Residents living on Merapi's fertile slopes were advised to stay 7km away from the crater's mouth and should be aware of the danger posed by lava, Indonesia's Geology and Volcanology Research Agency said.
Mount Merapi is the most active of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia and has repeatedly erupted with lava and gas clouds recently.
The 2968-metre peak is near Yogyakarta, an ancient city of several hundred thousand people embedded in a large metro area.
Merapi's last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people and caused the evacuation of 20,000 villagers.
