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Indonesia's most active volcano Mount Merapi erupted Tuesday, shooting a massive ash cloud some 6,000 metres (20,000 feet) in the air which coated nearby communities with grey dust and forced an airport closure.
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Ash mixed with sand rained down on towns as far as 10 kilometres (six miles) from the belching crater near Indonesia's cultural capital Yogyakarta. "There was a thundering noise for at least five minutes and I could see the ash clouds from my house," Jarmaji, a resident of Boyolali regency, told AFP.
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Authorities did not raise the rumbling volcano's alert status, but they temporarily shuttered the international airport in Solo city - also known as Surakarta - some 40 kilometres away after the early morning eruption.
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Indonesia's volcano agency warned residents to stay out of a three-kilometre no-go zone around Mount Merapi, citing possible danger from flowing lava and pyroclastic flows - a fast-moving mixture of hot gas and volcanic material. Mount Merapi's last major eruption in 2010 killed more than 300 people and forced the evacuation of some 280,000 residents.
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The Southeast Asian nation - an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands and islets - has nearly 130 active volcanoes.
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It sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a vast zone of geological instability where the collision of tectonic plates causes frequent quakes and major volcanic activity.
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Merapi's most powerful eruption in 1930 killed around 1,300 people, while another explosion in 1994 took about 60 lives.
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Indonesia's most active volcano Mount Merapi erupted Tuesday, shooting a massive ash cloud some 6,000 metres (20,000 feet) in the air.
Image Credit: AFP