Death toll from Indonesian volcano rises to 206

Fri, 12 Nov 2010

Yogyakarta, Indonesia - The death toll from the eruptions of Indonesia's Mount Merapi rose to 206 Friday as the volcano showed signs of winding down, officials said.

Merapi erupted for the first time in four years on October 26, but the Central Java volcano's biggest blast in decades occurred November 5, leaving more than 100 people dead and forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

The National Disaster Management Agency said the overall death toll from the eruptions since last month stood at 206 with more than 400 people injured.

More than 380,000 people living near the volcano were staying in emergency shelters, the agency said.

The country's top vulcanologist, Surono, warned that even though Merapi was showing less intensity, it was still hard to predict when the volcano would stop spewing hot gases and debris.

Three Japanese volcano experts have arrived in nearby Yogyakarta to help monitor Merapi's activity by installing three infrasonic microphones 20 kilometers from the peak, said Surono, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

"The microphones will detect pressure waves caused by volcanic activity, so we don't rely solely on seismographs and visual observations," he said.

"They are more sensitive than our ears," he said.

The 2,968-meter volcano's deadliest eruption on record occurred in 1930 when 1,370 people were killed. At least 66 people died in a 1994 eruption, and two people were killed in 2006.

Indonesia has about 500 volcanoes, nearly 130 of them active and 68 classified as dangerous.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/353219,indonesian-volcano-rises-206.html.