Telford photographer comes face to face with erupting volcano Mount Agung in Indonesia
When Lucy Poole woke up one morning and decided to quit her job, sell her car and book a one-way ticket to Asia, little did she expect to be face-to-face with an erupting volcano.
But the 24-year-old photographer from Telford found herself doing just that this week at the deadly Mount Agung in Indonesia.
She visited the volcano yesterday as the volcano in Bali continues to erupt with her sister Lauren Poole taking these stunning photographs.
The former Thomas Telford pupil said she had been wanting to travel the world for years and finally decided to do something about it.
"During July I quit my job as a digital marketing excutive, sold my car and booked a one way ticket," she said.
"On July 25 I travelled to Bangkok ready to start this amazing journey. Since then I have been travelling around South East Asia.
"I have been to Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and my next stop is Australia."
"During my time in Ubud I trekked up Mount Batur at 3am in order to reach the top to watch the sunrise.
"I was lucky enough to see Mount Agung erupting whilst sitting on the top of the volcano.
"I will be travelling back to Ubud this week and trekking back up Mount Batur to get a closer look of the most recent eruption.
"I will be flying to Sydney on December 10 where I will start working, hopefully in photography, and I plan to stay for a year."
Lava is welling in the crater of Mount Agung, but it remains unclear how bad the eruption might be or how long it could last.
Authorities have raised the alert to the highest level and told 100,000 people to leave an area extending six miles from the crater as it belches grey and white plumes into the sky.
Agung's last major eruption in 1963 killed about 1,100 people.
Officials extended the closure of Bali's international airport for another 24 hours due to concerns that jet engines could choke on the thick volcanic ash, which was moving across the island.
Airport spokesman Ari Ahsanurrohim said more than 440 flights were cancelled on Tuesday, affecting nearly 60,000 passengers, about the same as Monday.
Miss Poole said her sister is due to fly back later this week but wasn't sure if it would be possible any more.
Without aircraft, getting in or out of Bali requires travelling hours by land and boat to an airport on another island.
Experts said a larger, explosive eruption is possible or Agung could stay at its current level of activity for weeks.
"If it got much worse, it would be really hard to think of. You've got a huge population centre, nearly a million people in Denpasar and surroundings, and it's very difficult to envision moving those people further away," said Richard Arculus, a volcano expert at Australian National University, adding that an eruption in 1843 was even more explosive than the one in 1963.
"There are many examples in history where you have this kind of seismic build-up - steam ejections of a little bit of ash, growing eruptions of ash to a full-scale stratosphere-reaching column of ash, which can presage a major volcanic event," he said.
A Nasa satellite detected a thermal anomaly at the crater, said senior Indonesian volcanologist Gede Swantika. That means a pathway from the storage chamber in the volcano's crust has opened, giving magma easier access to the surface.
