Over 11,000 evacuated in northern Indonesia following volcanic eruption

More than 11,000 people have been instructed to evacuate and air travel has been disrupted after Mount Ruang, located in North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, erupted multiple times, Al Jazeera reported today.

According to the source, the volcano first erupted on Tuesday evening, sending smoke and ash high into the sky. After four more eruptions on Wednesday, the alert level was raised to four, the highest on the scale.

Officials worry that part of the volcano could collapse into the sea and cause a tsunami as it did during a previous eruption in 1871.

Indonesia, which sits along the ‘Ring of Fire’, a horseshoe-shaped series of tectonic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean, has 120 active volcanoes.