Mount Semeru: Indonesia raises alert to highest level as volcano erupts on Java island

Indonesia's Mount Semeru volcano has erupted, sending ash billowing into the entity and sparking evacuations connected the country's main island, Java.

Authorities raised the volcano's informing presumption to the highest level, meaning its enactment had escalated.

No injuries person been reported but astir 2,000 radical were evacuated from the country astir the volcano.

People person been urged to support astatine slightest 8 km (5 miles) away, arsenic "hot avalanches" of lava poured from Semeru.

The accrued menace level from 3 to 4 besides means the information threatens people's homes, a spokesperson for Indonesia's Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) told a nationalist broadcaster.

The organisation said a span being rebuilt aft a erstwhile eruption had been severely damaged.

Volcanic ash mixed with monsoon rainfall was falling connected adjacent villages and 1,969 people, including children and seniors, had been evacuated, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said.

At slightest six villages had been affected, it added.

Videos of the lawsuit showed the entity turning achromatic arsenic a monolithic plume of ash blocked the sunlight.

Japan issued a tsunami informing for its southernmost islands aft the eruption, but meteorologists said nary tidal changes had been observed.

Mount Semeru, successful East Java province, began erupting astatine astir 02:46 section clip (19:46 GMT), authorities said.

Indonesia sits connected the Pacific "Ring of Fire" wherever tectonic plates collide, causing predominant volcanic enactment arsenic good arsenic earthquakes.

Semeru - besides known arsenic "The Great Mountain" - is the highest volcano successful Java astatine 3,676m (12,060ft) and 1 of the astir active. Its past erupted precisely 1 twelvemonth ago, sidesplitting astatine slightest 50 radical and leaving streets filled with mud and ash.