Mount Sinabung Erupts Again, 1,300 Sumatra Residents Evacuated [VIDEO]

An 'inactive' volcano in Indonesia erupted again on Sunday, unleashing a cloud of volcanic ash and steam nearly two miles into the sky, forcing the residents living on the slopes on evacuate.

The two eruptions of Sunday, first one during the early hours and second at 4.15 p.m. afternoon, forced the authorities to evacuate people living on the sloped on Mt. Sinabung in North Sumatra. Nearly 7,000 metre-high volcanic ash with wind direction to the west was observed on Sunday. The volcano last erupted on September 15, 2013 and authorities then had evacuated more than 3,700 people living within three kilometre of the volcano's radius.

Due to the increase activity of the Sinabung volcano, the government raised the alert status from Level II to Level II effective from Sunday. The National Disaster Management Agency state that four villages located in the radius of 3 km, in front of the crater openings were evacuated first.

"Tremors are still occurring and thick black clouds are still being spewed," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesperson for the agency, told the Bangkok Post. "Residents living around Mt. Sinabung were evacuated to safer areas. The number of evacuees will rise."

Located in the Karo Plateau of North Sumatra, Indonesia, the 2,460-meter-tall volcano Mount Sinabung is an andesitic (volcanic rock)-dacitic stratovolcano with total of four volcanic crater, of which one is active. It had remained dormant for nearly 400 years. Before the 2010 eruption the last known eruption was in the year 1600. The recent eruption has baffled the scientists because the volcano has remained silent for centuries.

Reports according to Associated Press state that Mount Sinabung is one among the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia that is vulnerable to seismic upheaval because of its location on the Pacific 'Ring of Fire', an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. Almost 80 percent of all the volcanoes occur along the Ring of Fire.

The most active volcano of the country is Mount Merapi in central Java that killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions in 2010, reports AFP.

Take a look at the September eruption.