Mount Merapi

This article is about Mount Merapi in Central Java. 

Mount Merapi
Merapi, July 2005
Elevation	2,968 m (9,738 ft) [1]
Prominence	1,392 m
Listing	Ribu
Translation	Mountain of Fire (Indonesian)
Location
Location	Border of Central Java /Yogyakarta (Indonesia)
Coordinates	7°32′26.99″S 110°26′41.34″ECoordinates: 7°32′26.99″S 110°26′41.34″E
Geology
Type	Stratovolcano
Age of rock	400,000 years
Last eruption	26 October 2010[1]

Mount Merapi, Gunung Merapi (literally Mountain of Fire in Indonesian/Javanese), is a conical volcano located on the border betweenCentral Java and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It is the most active volcano in Indonesia and has erupted regularly since 1548. It is very close to the city of Yogyakarta, and thousands of people live on the flanks of the volcano, with villages as high as 1700 m above sea level.

The name Merapi could loosely translated as 'Mountain of Fire' from the Javanese combined words; Meru means "mountain" and api means "fire". Smoke can be seen emerging from the mountaintop at least 300 days a year, and several eruptions have caused fatalities. Hot gas from a large explosion killed 64 people on November 22 in 1994, mostly in the town of Muntilan, west of the volcano.^{[citation needed]} Another large eruption occurred in 2006, shortly before the Yogyakarta earthquake. In light of the hazards that Merapi poses to populated areas, it has been designated as one of the Decade Volcanoes.

On 25 October 2010 the Indonesian government raised the alert for Mount Merapi to its highest level and warned villagers in threatened areas to move to safer ground. People living within a 10km (6 mile) zone were told to evacuate. Officials said about 500 volcanic earthquakes had been recorded on the mountain over the weekend of 23–24 October, and that the magma had risen to about a kilometre below the surface due to the seismic activity.^[2] On the afternoon of 25 October 2010 Mount Merapi erupted lava from its southern and southeastern slopes