Mount Agung has erupted again spewing lava and ash into the air

[Ulquiorra]

THE Mount Agung volcano on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali erupted again on Monday evening, ejecting a 2000-metre-high column of thick ash and hurling lava down its slopes.

At the moment, flights to and from Australia are not affected.

The Indonesian geological agency’s Mount Agung monitoring post said a “loud explosion” from the mountain began just after 9pm.

“Flares of incandescent lava” reached two kilometres from the crater, it said.

The eruption lasted three minutes and 47 seconds, said the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).

It said the alert level for Agung has not been raised and the exclusion zone around the crater remains at four kilometres.

Last week, a number of flights were cancelled and the main airport was closed after the volcano erupted again, disrupting travel for tens of thousands.

“The eruption did not cause the volcanic ash to spread. Hence, airport operations in Bali and the surrounding areas remain normal,” BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on his official Twitter account on Monday.

Monday’s eruption was “strombolian,” the geological agency said, which is the mildest type of explosive volcanic eruption. It warned people living near rivers to exercise caution, particularly in wet weather, because of the risk of fast- moving flows of muddy volcanic debris.

The volcano, about 70 kilometres northeast of Bali’s tourist hotspot of Kuta, last had a major eruption in 1963, killing about 1100 people. It had a dramatic increase in activity last year, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, but had quietened by early this year. Authorities lowered its alert status from the highest level in February.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 250 million people, sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Government seismologists monitor more than 120 active volcanoes.