Mount Ruang erupts in Indonesia, spewing lava thousands of feet into the sky

The New York Times interviewed Tracy Gregg about the Mount Ruang in Indonesia eruption on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people in the North Sulawesi province. Indonesia is spread across what is known as the Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates clash under the surface of the Pacific Ocean and spawn earthquakes and eruptions from volcanoes. “It is in a part of the world where there are a lot of active volcanoes,” said Gregg noting that Mount Ruang’s last major eruption was in 2002, when the column of lava and ash that it spewed reached up to 17 miles. “So it is a little bit smaller than that,” she said. Right now, it is not as violent as the previous eruption, she added, but the volcano cannot be fully assessed while it is in progress.