FromYahoo News, Indonesia ordered the evacuation of 15,000 residents
near an active volcano in the west of the vast archipelago on Sunday as
authorities raised the alert for the emergency to the highest level.
Mount Sinabung on the island of Sumatra has become
increasingly active in recent months, spewing columns of ash several km into
the air.
Authorities expanded the evacuation radius to 5 km
(three miles) from 3 km and the military geared up to move residents out. About
6,000 have already been evacuated from the area, 88 km from Medan, capital of
North Sumatra province.
No casualties were reported as the
status of the volcano was raised from "standby" to
"caution".
"We have raised the status to 'caution', which is
the highest of levels for volcanic activity because we anticipate there will be
more eruptions and because the intensity of eruptions has been
increasing," the National Disaster Mitigation Agency said in a statement.
Sinabung is one of nearly 130 active volcanoes in the
world's fourth-most populated country, which straddles the "Pacific Ring
of Fire".
The most deadly eruption in recent
years was of Mount Merapi in 2010, near the densely populated city of
Yogyakarta in central Java. More than 350 people were killed.
