Residents evacuated, tourists stranded as Bali volcano spews ash


Authorities have told 100,000 people living near Mount Agung on the Indonesian island of Bali to leave their houses, fearing that the volcano will soon erupt.
Over the weekend, the volcano started to hurl ash nearly 10,000 feet into the air, and lava is visible inside the crater. Because it's too dangerous for airplanes to fly through volcanic ash, Bali's international airport has been closed for the past two days, stranding tens of thousands of visitors.
Mount Agung's last major eruption took place in 1963, killing around 1,100 people. Several residents have said they feel safe and don't want to leave their houses and livestock behind, The Associated Press reports, but a spokesman for Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency said "if necessary, we will forcibly evacuate them." It's possible that the volcano could keep its current level of activity for several weeks.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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