Indonesia: Mount Merapi shot out ta large cloud of searing hot ash and gas on Wednesday, ending two days of relative calm and underscoring the dangers still facing thousands of people living on its slopes.
Witnesses said the eruption appeared to be smaller than the mountain's most violent sputtering on Monday, when ash and gas clouds surged around four kilometers from the peak and triggered panic.
Volcanologists keeping the mounain on 24-hour watch were not immediately available for comment on the eruption, which sent volcanic material plunging down its western flanks, but appeared to fall short of populated areas.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific ''Ring of Fire,'' an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
On Tuesday night, a powerful earthquake rocked western Indonesia, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, meteorological officials reported. The quake did not appear to have triggered a tsunami.
A magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on December 26, 2004 killed more than 180,000 people in a dozen nations along the Pacific Rim.
Three quarters of the dead were on Indonesia's Sumatra island, not far from Nias.
Tuesday's quake was centered 146 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of Nias island's capital, Gunung Sitoli, at a depth of around 33 kilometers (20 miles), but caused no known damage or injuries, said Indonesian meteorologist Agung Sunaryadi.
Three months later, another strong tremor killed more than 900 on Nias and smaller surrounding islands in western Indonesia.
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