Indonesia's Anak Krakatau volcano erupted before dawn on Sunday, sending a column of ash miles into the sky and forcing the shutdown of Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, the country's busiest, stranding hundreds of travelers and grounding more than 300 flights.

According to Al Jazeera, the volcano — located in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra — erupted for roughly 30 seconds at 3:53 a.m. local time, producing two distinct ash plumes. One rose to about 20,000 feet and drifted northeast over Jakarta, Banten and West Java; a second, larger plume climbed to roughly 50,000 feet and pushed west and northwest across Banten, Lampung and Bengkulu provinces.

Soekarno-Hatta airport, located more than 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the volcano, suspended all operations until 5:30 p.m. local time, according to airport officials. The disruption affected 301 flights, including 58 international services, leaving passengers stranded in terminals across the sprawling facility for much of the day.

No Casualties, But Widespread Disruption

Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said no casualties had been reported and no evacuation order was issued, but the agency announced it would deploy cloud-seeding operations in an attempt to trigger rain and wash ash out of the atmosphere over the affected provinces. Schools in several ash-affected districts closed for the day, and fishing fleets along the Sunda Strait were advised to stay in port as visibility dropped.

ONE PLUME ROSE TO 20,000 FEET AND DRIFTED TOWARD JAKARTA; A SECOND REACHED 50,000 FEET, COVERING THREE PROVINCES.

Anak Krakatau — "Child of Krakatoa" — first emerged from the caldera left by the catastrophic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, one of the deadliest volcanic events in recorded history. The young volcano has a violent history of its own: a sector collapse in December 2018 triggered a tsunami that killed more than 400 people along the coastlines of Java and Sumatra without warning, since the collapse itself — not an earthquake — generated the wave. That history has kept Indonesian authorities on alert for any sign of instability at the volcano, according to the Washington Post.

Indonesia's volcanology agency raised the alert level for Anak Krakatau in the wake of Sunday's eruption and has rerouted commercial flight paths around the mountain as a precaution, following the same protocol used during previous ash events. Airlines including Garuda Indonesia and several international carriers began gradually resuming Jakarta operations Sunday evening as the ash cloud dispersed, though officials warned delays could continue into Monday as backlogged schedules are worked through.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and is home to more than 120 active volcanoes, making eruption-driven flight disruptions a recurring hazard for one of the world's busiest air travel markets. Authorities say they will continue monitoring Anak Krakatau's activity in the coming days before deciding whether to lift the heightened alert.