Illustrative photo — Photo Antara

JAKARTA — The Geological Agency of the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) recorded a total of 348 shallow volcanic earthquakes at Mount Awu in the Sangihe Islands Regency, North Sulawesi.

Head of the Geological Agency Muhammad Wafid on Thursday said that the agency also recorded 62 low-frequency earthquakes, 34 deep volcanic earthquakes, three local tectonic earthquakes, and 307 distant tectonic earthquakes.

According to the report on Mount Awu's activity shared by the Juliana D. J. Rumambi, Head of the Volcano Monitoring and Land Movement Disaster Mitigation Centre for Sulawesi and Maluku, in the second part of March, the RSAM (Real Time Seismic Amplitude Measurement) diagram generally experienced changes influenced by weather conditions and seismic activity.

Currently, seismic activity has increased compared to the previous period, especially with low-frequency earthquakes rising from four occurrences to 62 occurrences.

Meanwhile, shallow volcanic earthquakes remained at an average of 21 per day.

Based on the collected results, Muhamad Wafid said that a series of shallow volcanic earthquakes are still occurring, meaning that the process of rapid and sudden pressure release and rock cracking is still strong. Meanwhile, the increase in low-frequency earthquakes shows that the fluid movement inside Mount Awu is increasing. — VNS