Mount Merapi, Gunung Merapi (literally Fire Mountain in Indonesian and Javanese), is an active stratovolcano located on the border between Central Java and Special Region of Yogyakarta provinces, Indonesia. It is the most active volcano in Indonesia and has erupted regularly since 1548. It is located approximately 28 kilometres (17 mi) north of Yogyakarta city which has a population of 2.4 million, and thousands of people live on the flanks of the volcano, with villages as high as 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) above sea level.

Smoke can often be seen emerging from the mountaintop, and several eruptions have caused fatalities. Pyroclastic flow from a large explosion killed 27 people on 22 November 1994, mostly in the town of Muntilan, west of the volcano. Another large eruption occurred in 2006, shortly before the Yogyakarta earthquake. In light of the hazards that Merapi poses to populated areas, it has been designated as one of the Decade Volcanoes.

On 20 October 2010, the Indonesian government raised the alert for Mount Merapi to its highest level and warned villagers in threatened areas to move to safer ground. People living within the range of a 20 km (12 mi) zone were told to evacuate. Officials said[who?] about 500 volcanic earthquakes had been recorded on the mountain over the weekend of 23–24 October[vague], and that the magma had risen to about 1 kilometre (3,300 ft) below the surface due to the seismic activity. On the afternoon of 25 October 2010, Mount Merapi erupted lava from its southern and southeastern slopes.

The mountain was still erupting on 30 November 2010, but due to lowered eruptive activity on 3 December 2010, the official alert status was reduced to level 3. The volcano is now 2930 metres high, 38 metres lower than before the 2010 eruptions.

After a large eruption in 2010, the characteristic shape of Mount Merapi was changed. On 18 November 2013, Mount Merapi erupted smoke up to 2,000 meters high, one of its first major phreatic eruptions after the 2010 eruption. Researchers said that this eruption occurred due to the combined effect of hot volcanic gases and abundant rainfall. The most recent eruptions so far were on 3 March 2020, 27 March 2020, and 7 January 2021.

Indonesia's most active volcano has been spewing lava and hot ash not long after hundreds of residents had returned home after fleeing a series of eruptions.
The Mount Merapi volcano in Indonesia erupted on Wednesday spewing ash, gas and extremely hot rock fragments for four hours, the Research and Development Center for Geological Disaster Technology reported.

There were no reports of casualties, but the Development Center kept the alert system at its second-highest level.

The explosion happened just as residents had begun to return to their nearby homes on the island of Java after fleeing previous eruptions.

The resulting lava flow was the biggest since authorities raised the danger level in November, Hanik Humaida of the local Volcanology and Geological