Video | Indonesian volcano forces flight cancellations
Mount Merapi is not only forcing evacuations of surrounding villages, but is also interfering with international flights to nearby airports as the fiery lava lit the volcano’s cauldron and billowing smoke filled the sky.
Meanwhile, Scientists are reported to have warned that the volcano’s slow yet deadly eruption could continue for weeks with no short-term foreseeable end in sight, like a "marathon, not a sprint."
No casualties were reported in Mount Merapi's latest blasts, which came as Indonesia concurrently struggled to respond to an earthquake-generated tsunami that devastated a remote chain of islands.
The two disasters unfolded in separate parts of the country and together have killed nearly 470 people and strained the government's emergency response network.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the western and eastern Pacific.
So far, Merapi has killed 38 people in the past week.
