Steam rises from still-hot pyroclastic flow deposits in the Kali Blongkeng valley, 12 km from the summit of Merapi, in December 1930. Thirteen villages were totally destroyed and 29 more partially destroyed by these pyroclastic flows, which killed 1,369 people on 18 December.

Photo published in Neumann van Padang, 1933 (courtesy of Volcanological Survey of Indonesia).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license terms.

Keywords: ash plume | pyroclastic density current (PDC) | block-and-ash flow | dome collapse | lava dome | eruption

Merapi