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Mount Anak Krakatau in the Sunda Strait erupted in the early hours of 6 September 2026, at 3:53 a.m. local time.
Ash in the airspace forced the suspension of operations at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta and Halim Perdanakusuma airports and several regional airports — eight in all.
The Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation tracked two plumes, one at about 20,000 feet and a second reaching roughly 50,000 feet.
Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Garuda Indonesia and Qantas cancelled or rescheduled services to Jakarta.
Residents were told to stay at least 3 km from the active crater; no casualties or evacuation orders were reported.
A steep, cone-shaped volcano built of alternating layers of lava and pyroclastic material. Its viscous, gas-rich magma traps pressure, so eruptions tend to be explosive and ash-rich rather than the quiet lava flows of a shield volcano.
Simple Analogy: A shaken fizzy bottle rather than a slowly poured jug.
Indonesia's volcano monitoring agency; it tracked the ash plumes and set the exclusion zone
The country's air navigation service provider, which suspended operations once ash was confirmed in the airspace
The Sunda Strait separates Java from Sumatra and links the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean. Anak Krakatau sits within it, in the caldera of the 1883 volcano. Indonesia lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, above the Sunda Trench where the Indo-Australian Plate is subducted beneath the Eurasian Plate.
GS Paper I > Physical Geography > Volcanism, plate tectonics and the Pacific Ring of Fire
General Awareness > World geography and current events
The horseshoe-shaped belt of subduction zones around the Pacific basin that accounts for the majority of the world's earthquakes and active volcanoes.
A large depression formed when a volcano's magma chamber empties and the roof collapses — the feature from which Anak Krakatau grew after 1883.
Fine fragments of rock and volcanic glass; it melts in a jet engine's hot section and re-solidifies on turbine parts, which is why airspace is closed.