The walls of the mosque were black. In the villages near the Sunda Strait, people took their brooms in the first days of September. They swept the grey dust from the floors of their houses. They swept the black walls of the mosque near them. The volcano was still throwing out ash.
The volcano is called Anak Krakatau. It started on Saturday. Hot rock came up like a fountain of fire. People in many parts of the country heard big sounds. They felt the ground move. The geology agency of Indonesia said this.
Ash is very bad for planes. On Sunday at half past one in the night, the big airport of Jakarta stopped all planes. Its name is Soekarno-Hatta. People found ash in the air over the airport. The transport ministry, the government office for planes and trains, said the test was positive. So the airport stayed closed until half past nine in the morning. The ministry said 209 flights had problems. More than 22,000 people could not fly. Flights to Singapore and from Singapore had the biggest problems. Flights to Doha, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur had problems too. Sixteen flights to Bali did not fly.
Then the airports closed again. On Monday morning seven airports in Indonesia were closed. Two of them are the airports of Jakarta. The transport minister said this. The ash came down on the capital city and on other places near it. It started on Friday night. The airports closed because it was not safe.
In the night, people looked at the volcano. The hot rock made the sky red.