Mount Merapi : the youngest in a group of volcanoes in southern Java
Mount Merapi Smoke can be seen emerging from the mountaintop at least 300 days a year, and several eruptions have caused fatalities. Pyroclastic flow from a large explosion killed 27 people on 22 November in 1994, mostly in the town of Muntilan, west of the volcano. Another large eruption occurred in 2006, shortly before the Yogyakarta earthquake. In light of the hazards that Merapi poses to populated areas, it has been designated as one of the Decade Volcanoes. The mountain was still erupting on 30 November 2010 however due to lowered eruptive activity on 3 December 2010 the official alert status was reduced to level 3. The volcano is now 2930 metres high, 38 metres lower than before the 2010 eruptions. The name Merapi could be loosely translated as 'Mountain of Fire'. The etymology of the name came from Meru-Api; from the Javanese combined words; Meru means "mountain", refer to mythical mountain of Gods in Hinduism, and api means "fire". Merapi is the y...