Indonesia's most dangerous volcano forced international airlines to cancel flights to nearby airports Tuesday, as fiery lava lit the rumbling mountain's cauldron and plumes of smoke blackened the sky.
Scientists warned that the slow eruption could continue for weeks, like a "marathon, not a sprint."
No casualties were reported in Mount Merapi's latest blasts, which came as Indonesia struggled to respond to an earthquake-generated tsunami that devastated a remote chain of islands last week. The two disasters in separate parts of the country have killed nearly 470 people and strained the government's emergency response network.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanos because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific.
Merapi has killed 38 people in the last week and prompted the government Tuesday to order airlines to choose routes circumventing the towering dark ash on takeoff and landing