🔥 Indonesia’s Mount Semeru, which last erupted in on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021, has awoken once again on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2022. Wow, on the very same day!
🔥 Thousands of residents in Indonesia’s East Java were on high alert on Monday after a violent eruption at the island’s tallest volcano prompted authorities to impose an 8-kilometer no-go zone and forced evacuations of entire villages.
The provincial search and rescue agency deployed teams to the worst-affected areas near Mount Semeru to assess damage, with low rainfall giving some reprieve, Tholib Vatelehan, a Basarnas spokesperson, told Reuters.
“Yesterday, the rainfall level was high, causing all the material from the top of the mountain to come down. But today, so far, there’s no rain, so its relatively safe,” he said.
No casualties have been reported and there has not been any immediate disruption to air travel.
The 3,676-metre volcano erupted at 2.46pm local time on Sunday (0746GMT). Footage shot by local residents showed Mt. Semeru spewing a giant cloud of grey ash high above its crater, which later engulfed the mountain and surrounding rice paddy fields, roads and bridges, and turned the sky black. A video shared by the Environment Ministry on Twitter showed a pyroclastic flow of lava, rocks and hot gases gushing down the mountainside.
People fled the eruption on motorcycles, with almost 2,500 people forced to evacuate, authorities said.
Indonesia’s volcanology and geological hazard mitigation agency on Sunday raised the alert level for Mt. Semeru to the highest level. The agency also issued a warning to residents not to approach within 8 km (5 miles) of the summit, or 500 metres of riversides due to risks of lava flows.
Semeru erupted last year killing more than 50 people and displacing thousands more.
The eruption, some 640 km (400 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta, follows a series of earthquakes in the west of Java, including one last month that killed more than 300 people.
An archipelago of 270 million that sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth.
With 142 volcanoes, Indonesia has the largest population globally living in close range to a volcano, including 8.6 million within 10km (6.2 miles).
Mauna Loa, which means “long mountain” in Hawaiian, is the largest active volcano in the world. It covers 2,035 sq miles (5,271 sq km), and is one of a chain of five volcanoes which form Hawaii’s Big Island.
In the satellite imagery captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES-West satellite, you can clearly see the volcanic eruption, a monstrous plume of gas and ash suddenly covering a large portion of the Big Island.
❖ የኅዳር ጽዮን ማርያም / Annual feast of St. Mary of Zion
This is a feast colorfully celebrated every year on Hidar 21 (November 30) at every church dedicated to St. Mary. The day is observed with special fervor particularly in Axum Tsion where the Ark of the Covenant is housed safely. The occasion is attended by massive Christian pilgrimages from all over Ethiopia and also foreign visitors making it one of the most joyous annual pilgrimages in Axum, the sacred city of Ethiopians.
The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion claims to contain The original Ark of the Covenant.The Feast of the Ark of the Covenant (locally known as Tabote Tsion) is held in commemoration of different historical events including the coming of The Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia and the construction of the first church dedicated to St. Mary in Axum.
The day also marks the destruction of Dagon by the power of The Ark of God, as recorded in the Bible, and the return of The Ark to Israel after seven months of exile at the Dagon’s house in Philistine. (1 Samuel 4; 6)
In the Ethiopian Holy City of Axum – where we Orthodox Tewahedo Christians believe The Ark of the Covenant is housed — a massacre took place on 28 November 2020, continuing on 29 November, tallying more than 800 Christian worshipers deaths.
Survivors of these and other horrifying massacres in Tigray, and we children of Axum crying out for justice. Hundreds of thousands of survivors are still seeking justice and redress, which may only come through independent and credible investigations into the atrocities they and we all suffered. Our calls for justice and accountability must not go unheeded because of the hypocrite international community’s empty and self-serving refrain of “African solutions for African problems”.
❖❖❖ [Isaiah 42:1–4] ❖❖❖
“Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.„
💭 Satellites at the beginning of this year identified new fissures near one of the world’s most active volcanoes, Erta Ale, in Ethiopia, also known as the “steaming mountain” and the “gate of hell.”
🔥The Third World War began on October 24 / 2013 (Ethiopian calendar – on the Days of Saints George and Abune Teklahaymanot) on November 4, 2020, when the Edomites and Ishmaelites opened their Jihad against Axum Zion (on the Ark of the Covenant). The US presidential election took place on this very day.
And just today, it was reported that Ethiopian government and Tigray forces agreed to ceasefire after first face-to-face talks – and this over a million massacred ancient Christians later – and nobody is talking about JUSTICE.
Our expedition leader and guide from VolcanoDiscovery Ethiopia, Enku Mulugeta, visited the volcano in mid-October to make new observations. A couple of significant changes in the southern pit crater have been observed since the last update.
Vigorous lava spattering continues to eject hot, fresh and plastic lava clots that in turn have piled into 5-7 meters high deposits (so-called hornitos) at the northern and southern walls of the crater due to short travel distance from and/or above the vent. Hornito is considered to be rare hawaiian-type phenomena that is formed when part of lava, flowing within lava tube, escapes through a hole out of lava tube due to strong degassing in the form of spattering.
Furthermore, both hornitos are formed on the thin solidified crust of the pit crater, among which a gap resembling a cave-like lava tube appears to be prone to collapse into a large lava lake as it used to be before. Slabs of dark, solidified crust continue to shift on the lava lake surface accompanied by typical bright orange lava glow between them.