Hundreds of people have fled their homes after the Mount Egon volcano erupted on the island of Flores on Tuesday evening. There are no reports of damages or casualties according to Indonesia’s volcanology and disaster management agencies on Wednesday. Head of the volcanology agency Surono said that Mount Egon in the Sikka regency of East Nusa Tenggara province spewed lava at 22:15 p.m. local time on Tuesday and resulted smoke up to 4,000 meters high.

Surono predicted that more explosions would follow as the Tuesday evening’s explosion was not categorized as the major explosion. “I think there will be more bigger explosions. Our team has already been in the scene to closely monitor the volcano activities,” he said. Indonesian Disaster Management Agency official Mounique said that over 600 people living on the slope of the mountain had been evacuated.

Mount. Egon is part of the country’s 129 active volcanoes, which 66 of them are located in high-density population areas, Java and Sumatra islands, according to the volcanology agency.

The Indonesian government has said that it is unlikely to import rice from other countries this year because of a sufficient stock after nationwide harvests. This reduces the pressure on the tight global supplies in times of record-breaking rice prices. Prices of Thai rice - a benchmark for the market - have doubled since the start of this year mainly because of rising demand from China and African nations. Vietnam and India have already decided to curb exports to protect their own markets.

Indonesia is in it’s harvesting season for rice. Poor results could have meant further pressure on te strained market for rice, but the country is likely to produce a surplus this time. A good harvest at the end of last year is a hopeful sign that this harvest will be good as well, said Bayu Krishnamurti from the Ministry of Agriculture. Indonesia is expected to produce 32.63 million metric tons of rice this year, while domestic consumption is forecast at 31.45 million tons, leaving a surplus of 1.2 million tons.
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