Indonesia’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport halted flight operations early Sunday after volcanic ash from the erupting Mount Anak Krakatau reached the capital, disrupting roughly 209 flights, according to the country’s transportation ministry.
The airport, Indonesia’s busiest, extended a closure that had originally been set to lift by 5:30 a.m. local time, pushing the suspension to 9:30 a.m. Officials said ash was first detected over the airport in the early morning hours. The volcano, situated in the strait separating Java and Sumatra, has been erupting continuously since late Friday.
Indonesia’s meteorological agency reported ash plumes reaching around 20,000 feet on the Java side of the volcano and as high as 50,000 feet on the Sumatra side, with fallout also affecting Indonesia’s Banten and Lampung provinces. A spokesperson for the national disaster mitigation agency urged residents in the surrounding area to stay calm but remain alert, while officials said school activities and some fishing operations in nearby coastal communities had also been suspended as a precaution.
The agency said Saturday there was no immediate tsunami risk from the current eruption. That reassurance carries particular weight in the region: a 2018 eruption at the same volcano triggered flank collapses that set off tsunami waves killing several hundred people across Java and Sumatra. Anak Krakatau, whose name translates to “child of Krakatau,” rose from the site of the original Krakatoa volcano, whose catastrophic 1883 eruption killed more than 36,000 people. The volcano sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a zone of frequent seismic and volcanic activity stretching across Indonesia’s archipelago.
