Mount Merapi Volcano: When Mother Nature Blows Her Top

Mount Merapi Volcano: When Mother Nature Blows Her Top

Located on the border between Central Java and Yogyakarta, Indonesia is Mount Merapi, known to locals as the Mountain Of Fire.

Although minor eruptions are fairly common every 2 or 3 years, the last significant eruption is believed to have been in 1930, when 13 villages were destroyed and 1,400 people were killed by pyroclastic flows from the volcano.

As part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, Mount Merapi is one of 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia and measures 9,738 feet, or 2,968 meters, in height according to one source. Getting an accurate height measurement on an active volcano is almost impossible; Mount Merapi grew by an amazing 75 meters in just 2 weeks as a new lava dome rapidly formed.

Located about 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of Jakarta in Central Java province, it looms ominously over the Kedu plain and provides rich, fertile soils for the thousands of people living around it.

Merapi holds particular significance for the Javanese, as it is one of four places where officials from the royal palaces of Java's Yogyakarta and Solo make annual offerings to placate the spirits of ancient Javanese mythology.

Superstitious Javanese believe that a volcano's eruption is the result of spirits being angered by not receiving sufficient offerings or by a disrespectful attitude among the people living on its slopes.

In August 1883, it's said that one of the largest volcanic eruptions ever seen on earth took place when Indonesia's Krakatoa volcano burst to life after lying dormant for 300 years, raining debris on Java and Sumatra islands and killing about 36,000 people.

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