JAKARTA, March 28, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - The offspring of Indonesia's infamous 
Krakatoa volcano erupted several times on Tuesday, sending a huge volcanic 
ash tower some 2,500 metres (8,200 feet) into the sky. 

Mount Anak Krakatoa, which means Child of Krakatoa, erupted four times, 
officials said, with the biggest followed by another that sent a column of 
smoke and ash 1,500 metres above its crater.

"This is part of an eruption phase associated with the formation of a new 
body for the volcano," Oktory Prambada, an official at the Centre of 
Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, told AFP.

In 2018, its crater partly collapsed when a major eruption sent huge chunks 
of the volcano sliding into the ocean, triggering a tsunami that killed more 
than 400 people and injured thousands.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage on Tuesday.

Prambada said the volcano's alert status remained at the second-highest level 
after the series of eruptions, with authorities imposing an exclusion zone of 
five kilometres (3.1 miles) around the crater.

Anak Krakatoa, which sits in a strait that separates the islands of Java and 
Sumatra, has been sporadically active since it emerged from the sea at the 
beginning of last century in the caldera formed after the 1883 eruption of 
Mount Krakatoa.

That disaster was one of the deadliest and most destructive in history with 
an estimated 35,000 people killed.

Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago nation, sits on the Pacific Ring of 
Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and 
seismic activity.

The country has nearly 130 active volcanoes.