Click on the image above to see an animation of 3-meter natural color PlanetScope image collected over Mount Ruang, Indonesia on March 24, April 15 and 25, and May 19, 2024. And wow this is just a tragic animation as in the March 24th image you can see Mount Ruang is covered in lush vegetation with a small village on its west shore. In the April 15th image you can see some smoke rising from the caldera of the volcano, but by April 25th you can see all of the vegetation that once covered the island is literally gone! Likely blown down by volcanic winds and covered in ash. But even more tragic, in the May 19th image, you can see that the small village on this island is literally gone as we see no presence of human structures. We only hope the residents of this town were able to escape in time – so tragic. (Images Courtesy: © Planet 2024)

In this monthly feature, we span the globe to examine Our Changing Landscape with a time series of medium-resolution PlanetScope satellite imagery. The PlanetScope constellation dates back to 2016 and collects hundreds of millions of square kilometers of four and eight-band 3-meter imagery daily! In July, we looked at the 2024 California superbloom over Carrizon Plain National Monument. For the August edition of this series, we are headed to Indonesia to check out Mount Ruang after its April 2024 eruption.

The PlanetScope Microsat Constellation

PlanetScope is a constellation of more than 240 microsats referred to individually as Doves. Each Dove is able to collect up to 20,000 square kilometers (sq km) per day of 3-meter (m) 4-band multispectral (i.e. blue, green, red and near-infrared [NIR]) imagery; and newly launched SuperDoves collect 8-band multispectral adding in valuable red-edge spectral data. Across the constellation, PlanetScope is archiving more than 200 million sq km of medium-resolution imagery a day, making it the go to source for daily imagery over most locations. This massive archive dates back to 2016, offering the most complete and continuous record of spatial data on the planet since the start of the constellation’s ongoing launch schedule. Collecting 3-meter multispectral imagery is the equivalent of ‘high-resolution’ multispectral data imaged by a 75-centimer (cm) satellite (as this satellite would feature 75-cm panchromatic and 3-m multispectral), making PlanetScope an extremely competitively priced option at just $2.25 per sq km. With well registered images and nearly daily collections of most locations, PlanetScope is the ideal imagery source for this current-events focused series, Our Changing Landscape.

April 2024 Eruption of Mount Ruang, Indonesia

In April, the Mount Ruang volcano erupted, prompting the evacuation of more than 12,000 people living on a nearby island. The Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) had warned the residents of Tagulandang island that a tsunami could be triggered by volcanic material collapsing into the ocean. The eruption toward the end of April came on the heels of a series of eruptions that happened earlier that same month, also forcing hundreds of people to evacuate due to fears it could partially collapse into the sea and cause a tsunami as Mount Ruang did in 1871, according to CNN; along with the closure of seven airports and numerous schools. More than 500 houses and buildings were damaged by the mid-April eruption, Reuters reported.

The Indonesian geological agency urged people to stay at least 4 miles from the volcano’s crater. It warned people on nearby Tagulandang Island, the closest to the volcano, of possible super-heated volcanic clouds from a further eruption, and a tsunami if the mountain’s volcanic dome collapses into the sea, CBS News shared. Video released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed about a hundred villagers from Tagulandang Island being evacuated on a navy ship. Hundreds of others were waiting at a local port to be evacuated. On May 15, the Badan Nacional Penanggulangan Bencana reported that a total of 9,343 residents of Tagulandang and Ruang islands remained in evacuation centers because of ongoing eruptions from Mount Ruang.

Volcanic ash from Ruang has reached eastern Malaysian airspace, Malaysia’s meteorological department said. Regional carrier Air Asia said it canceled 21 flights following Mount Ruang’s latest eruption. Ruang is among about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The archipelagic nation is prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a series of fault lines stretching from the western coast of the Americas through Japan and Southeast Asia.

If you would like to find out more about using 3-meter PlanetScope imagery for your academic studies, engineering projects or any landscape analysis, let us know at sales@apollomapping.com or (303) 993-3863.