Anak Krakatau eruption shuts Jakarta airspace, hits 467 flights

Jakarta,UPDATED: Sep 6, 2026 20:28 IST

Anak Krakatau volcano erupted in Indonesia early on Sunday, sending volcanic ash across parts of western Indonesia and forcing the closure of airspace around Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport. Flights were also disrupted at several other airports, with hundreds of services affected and thousands of passengers stranded.

Authorities said there were no casualties and no evacuation order was issued, but residents and visitors were told to stay at least 3 kilometres away from the active crater. Ash spread across parts of Jakarta and Lampung province, while officials said the volcano remained active and was being closely monitored.

Indonesia's Geological Agency said the volcanic island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra had shown signs of activity since Friday. It erupted for 30 seconds at 3:53 am on Sunday and again for 16 seconds about three hours later. Closed-circuit camera footage showed lava flares from the volcano.

The nearest settlement is more than 16 kilometres away. AirNav Indonesia shut airspace around Soekarno-Hatta and Halim Perdanakusuma airports in Jakarta, along with six other airports, including Radin Inten II Airport in Lampung, because of volcanic ash.

By Sunday evening, 467 flights had been affected at Soekarno-Hatta airport alone, impacting about 150,000 passengers. The airport was ordered shut until 11:59 pm. "It's of course an inconvenience," said Diego Urdiales, a Spanish tourist who was supposed to fly home to Madrid. "I was supposed to get input from the airline ... but so far no news."

"It's a natural disaster, it's a force majeure, so, what can we do?" said Michele Gouw, an Indonesian passenger. "We just have to accept it and wait for the airline and airport directions." Indonesia's Directorate General of Civil Aviation said it was closely monitoring the eruption's effect on air travel and coordinating with airlines, airport operators, air navigation services and the meteorology agency.

"Safety remains our top priority in every operational decision," Lukman F Laisa, the Ministry of Transportation's director general of civil aviation, said in a statement. He warned that flight schedules could face wider disruption affecting aircraft use, fleet availability and terminal capacity as airlines worked to restore services. The eruption also disrupted operations at Bali's I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport and at Medan.

Indonesia's volcanology agency and the Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre identified two ash clouds through satellite imagery. One plume rose to 20,000 feet and drifted north-east over Jakarta, Banten, West Java and nearby waters. A second cloud reached 50,000 feet and spread over parts of Banten, Lampung and Bengkulu provinces, the southern Sunda Strait and parts of the Indian Ocean west of Sumatra.

Lana Saria, head of Indonesia's Geological Agency, said activity at Anak Krakatau had intensified since July, with Sunday's eruption the strongest during that period. She said the repeated eruptions showed a continued supply of magma and volcanic gases beneath the volcano, though officials could not predict whether a larger eruption would follow. "We continue to evaluate the volcano's development based on all monitoring data, not solely on the number of eruptions or the height of the ash column," Saria said in a video briefing. She said the main hazards included volcanic ash, high concentrations of gas, and the ejection of hot rocks and other material around the crater area.

Anak Krakatau, or "child of Krakatau", is the offspring of Krakatau, whose 1883 eruption triggered a period of global cooling. In 2018, an eruption of Anak Krakatau caused a tsunami that killed at least 430 people in Sumatra and Java after volcanic activity triggered an underwater landslide. Sunday's eruption caused no casualties, but disrupted air travel across several parts of Indonesia and kept authorities on alert as the volcano remained active.

With PTI Inputs

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