Lewotolo volcano spews ash thousands of meters high
Lewotolo volcano spews ash thousands of meters high. Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features Indonesia’s Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in Maritime Southeast Asia.
On November 29, 2020, a powerful eruption of the Lewotolo volcano spewed an ash plume high in the air over the island of Lembata. The ash plume, which is visible in this image, reached thousands of meters high, shutting down the local airport. Lewotolo volcano spews ash thousands of meters high
The Lewotolo stratovolcano, also known as Mount Ile Lewotolok, has been relatively quiet since 2012.
The image was captured on November 29 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.
On 27 November, an eruption occurred at 5:57 a.m. local time (21:57 UTC), which generated an ash column that rose to an altitude 500 meters into the sky. On 29 November, two days later, a major blast took place sending an ash column as high as 50000 ft (15.24 km) into the sky.Volcanic bombs have an impact radius of about 2 km from the main crater.
By Wednesday 2 December, it was reported that more than 5,500 people had been evacuated from their homes near the volcano. Residents on the slopes of Mt Ile Lewotolok had been warned of potential cold lava flows, especially during periods of heavy rain, and had been advised to remain outside of a 4-kilometer radius from the crater
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
