Indonesian authorities started on Thursday the evacuation of approximately 3,000 residents living near Mount Ibu, located on the eastern island of Halmahera, following a series of eruptions that have raised safety concerns, reports said.

The volcanic activity began earlier this week, with Mount Ibu erupting on Tuesday afternoon, releasing a plume of thick grey ash that reached heights of up to four kilometres (2.5 miles).

The volcano erupted again on Wednesday morning at 07:11am local time (2211 GMT Tuesday), spewing ash for about two minutes.

The head of the country’s volcanology agency, Muhammad Wahid, noted that the ash clouds were drifting westward.

“Residents and tourists should not engage in any activities within at least five kilometers (three miles) from the crater,” Wahid advised.

A spokesperson for the country’s disaster mitigation agency, Abdul Muhari, told Reuters that 13,000 people were living near the volcano.

“Judging from the situation from the ground, it is still pretty stable,” he said.

Ibu’s activities follow a series of eruptions of different volcanoes in Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and has 127 active volcanoes.

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Mount Ibu has a history of volcanic eruptions, including a series of events in the previous year that resulted in the evacuation of residents from seven nearby villages. The recent activity of Ibu follows a trend of eruptions across various Indonesian volcanoes, as the country is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” home to 127 active volcanoes.

In November of the previous year, the eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki in East Nusa Tenggara province resulted in nine fatalities, damaged over 2,000 homes, and necessitated the evacuation of 13,000 residents. The outbursts also led to the cancellation of more than 160 flights to and from Bali in early November.