Mount Merapi on the Indonesian island of Java erupted in October and November 2010, killing over 350 people and displacing hundreds of thousands. Merapi is one of Indonesia's most active and dangerous volcanoes, located near the culturally significant city of Yogyakarta. The eruption produced pyroclastic flows, ash falls, and lahars that devastated agricultural areas and villages on the volcano's slopes.

The Merapi eruption deeply affected Javanese communities whose cultural and literary traditions view the volcano as spiritually significant. Indonesian and Javanese poets have addressed the disaster in works exploring the intersection of Hindu-Buddhist cosmology, Islamic faith, and indigenous beliefs about sacred mountains, contributing to Southeast Asian literary conversations about spirituality, environmental stewardship, and cultural continuity in the face of recurring natural catastrophe.