(ORDO NEWS) — The volcano, located off the coast of Indonesia, could lead to the collapse of the global economy, and experts warn that it should erupt.
Mount Merapi is located about 1800 kilometers from the Straits of Malacca. Every day, 90,000 ships pass through the narrow channel carrying grain, crude oil and all kinds of goods in the market.
The nearly 3,000-meter-tall volcano will throw an ash cloud 30 kilometers over a route that handles 40 percent of world trade, and will cover the Earth in a volcanic winter for three years.
A sharp drop in temperature will lead to global food shortages, inflation and climate anomalies, researchers from the University of Cambridge warn. And these disasters will cost the world about $2.51 trillion.
Although Mount Merapi is currently dormant, it experienced a devastating eruption in 1006 that destroyed the entire existing Hindu kingdom that once lived in central Java.
The last major eruption of the volcano occurred in 2010, when a column of volcanic ash rose to a height of more than 600 meters above the crater and killed 353 people.
A Cambridge University team has published a report detailing possible doomsday scenarios when Mount Merapi wakes up.
The ash cloud will be carried many kilometers from the volcano to various airports in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, which will stop all aviation activity.
According to a 2021 study published in Nature, the region is one of the busiest airspaces in the world, with the air route between both cities alone reaching over 5.5 million per year.
This will suspend tourism in all countries, resulting in billions of dollars in losses – for Indonesia alone, this is a $3.35 billion industry.
But the rest of the world will also suffer from the eruption of Mount Merapi.
“Mean global temperatures fall by 1°C for up to three years, leading to severe climate anomalies that lead to severe global food shortages,” the University of Cambridge said in a report.
“Unpredictable rainfall patterns and unusually low summer temperatures are causing massive crop failures around the world, leading to skyrocketing food prices and high global inflation in the summer months of the second year.
It is not until the beginning of the third year after the eruption that technological advances catch up with the crisis and help balance global food supply and demand.”
The region is also highly volcanic, with numerous volcanic centers along the Indonesian archipelago such as Mount Sinabung (VEI 4) and Mount Toba in Sumatra, and Mount Merapi (VEI 4) in Central Java.
While nothing can be done to prevent natural disasters from entering the Strait of Malacca, there are possible ways to send early warning systems and signs to warn people of an impending disaster.
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