JAKARTA – Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano spewed avalanches of hot clouds Thursday morning as more than 500 residents were evacuated from its fertile slopes.Fog was covering the volcano at the time, so the distance the pyroclastic clouds spread was not visually observed.
The amplitude record and seismic recording data from Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development Center estimated the hot clouds spread less than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the crater.Local authorities on Thursday evacuated more than 500 people living on the mountain in Magelang district on Java Island.“Until now, the potential danger is not more than 5 kilometers (3 miles),” chief of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center, Hanik.