Sinabung

September 15, 2013 Eruption of Sinabung

September 15, 2013 · VEI 2

Sinabung in Indonesia erupted on September 15, 2013 with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 2.

Where it erupted

Sinabung, Indonesia, with its other significant eruptions.

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The eruption

Date
September 15, 2013
Volcano
Sinabung, stratovolcano
Country
Indonesia
Volcanic Explosivity Index
2, moderate (eruption column 1 to 5 km)
Location
3.170° N, 98.392° E

The toll

Damage
Moderate (about $1 to $5 million)

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

Based on information from the Jakarta Meteorological Watch Office, webcam data, wind data, and satellite images, the Darwin VAAC reported that on 6 November an ash plume from Sinabung rose to an altitude of 3 km (10,000 ft) a.s.l. The next day an ash plume rose to the same altitude but was not observed in satellite images due to meteorological cloud cover... According to a news article posted on 12 November, more than 5,000 people from seven villages had evacuated their homes in recent days. The article noted that the government had called for an evacuation of people living within a 3-km radius of Sinabung, but people outside of that zone had also been evacuating. (reference #2432)

Indonesian farmers continued to harvest their crops Thursday even as a volcano erupted less than two and a half miles away, coating their fields in ash. Up to 4,300 residents have been evacuated from five villages in North Sumatra due to the eruptions of Mount Sinabung, according to Getty Images. The volcano has been spewing ash and lava 2.5 miles into the sky. The Jakarta Globe reported that tens of thousands of hectares of farmland had been affected, with losses to farmers expected to amount to millions of dollars. (reference #10809)

Other significant eruptions of Sinabung

More

Every eruption in 2013The 2000sSinabungEarthquakes near SinabungThis day in weather history

Sources

Volcanoes and significant eruptions from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-09-24. Volcano numbers are the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program’s. NCEI event 5984.