From CNN.com: Mount Merapi, one of Indonesia’s most dangerous volcanoes, has been growling for about a month now– but an increase in lava flow in the past day has intensified worries that an eruption is imminent. As a result, more than 20,000 people will need to be evacuated to shelters that are already crowded (one of them already filled to three times its capacity).
If that isn’t bad enough, the United Nations is predicting that as many as 80,000 people may be displaced by an eruption, depending on the way the lava flows. Volcanologist Catherine Hickson, of Thompson Rivers University in Canada, said “What the officials are saying is that we’re going to have a larger eruption than what we’re seeing right at the moment.”
Merapi is one of at least 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia. It is part of the so-called “Ring of Fire,” which is a series of fault lines and volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean.