Mount Agung: photos of Bali volcano on brink of eruption

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Arresting images of Mount Agung on the holiday island of Bali, Indonesia offer an up-close look at the volcano, which is thought to present an “imminent risk” of a major eruption.

Photos taken earlier this week show locals going about their everyday business under the shadow of Mount Agung’s ominous dark clouds.

However, at 6am local time this morning (10pm Sunday night GMT), Indonesian authorities raised the state of alert to its highest level - indicating an “imminent risk of disaster” - and ordered the evacuation of 100,000 people living closest to the volcano.

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Indonesia’s National Board of Disaster Management said that “continuous ash puffs... sometimes accompanied by explosive eruptions accompanied by a weak sound of boom” indicate a potential for a larger eruption, The Guardian reports.

The thick clouds billowing out of the crater may look like smoke, but they are actually a mixture of smoke, steam and ash that have been forced out by the rising tide of red-hot magma.

“As the magma moves up, water inside the volcano heats up, steam builds up pressure and it gets to a point where the rock just can't hold it back any more,” volcanologist Janine Krippner told the BBC. “That is what we are seeing now.”