It seems that the volcanoes of Indonesia are restless this August - and this weekend was no exception. Two volcanoes made the news as unrest reached levels high enough for Indonesia officials to call for evacuations. The first was at Papandayan, a composite volcano on Java that last erupted in 2002. Gas emissions from the main "Golden Craters" at the volcano along with the threat of a phreatic (steam-driven) eruption have prompted a 2-km exclusion zone around the main crater - however, they have lowered the alert level from 3 to 2 since the initial warning during the weekend. Papandayan is a popular tourist destination, so enforcing the exclusion might be difficult. The volcano has only had 4 known historic eruptions, with the eruption in 1772 ranking as a VEI 3 that produced almost 3,000 fatalities.
The volcano getting attention is Soputan on Sulawesi. We've been watching the volcano since ...
