Indonesia expands evacuation zone as volcano rumbles

Wed, 03 Nov 2010

Jakarta - Indonesia on Wednesday expanded the evacuation zone around Mount Merapi from 10 to 15 kilometers as the volcano spewed clouds of hot ash and lava, a top vulcanologist said.

A series of eruptions Wednesday afternoon were the strongest since last week's deadly burst, said Surono, head of the Center for Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.

The National Disaster Management Agency raised the death toll from Merapi's previous eruptions to 42 in its latest update.

"This is an extraordinary situation," Surono, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, told Metro TV Wednesday. "This is the first time that an eruption hasn't stopped after an hour."

He warned that the 15-kilometer evacuation zone must not be ignored.

Some residents living near the volcano previously ignored warnings not to stay within the 10-kilometer zone and returned to work in their fields.

Earlier Wednesday, Metro TV showed people being transported to their hamlets in trucks to allow them to feed their livestock.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited one of the camps sheltering villagers displaced by the eruptions in the Sleman district in the Yogyakarta special region.

He urged local officials to provide adequate food and other needs for the displaced, local media reported.

The daily eruptions prompted the Transport Ministry to issue a warning to airlines Tuesday to avoid certain routes over Java island.

Budget airline AirAsia and Singapore's Silk Air canceled flights to Yogyakarta and Solo, the two cities closest to the volcano.

The 2,968-meter peak is about 500 kilometers south-east of Jakarta. Its deadliest eruption on record occurred in 1930 when 1,370 people were killed. At least 66 people were killed in a 1994 eruption, and two people were killed in 2006.

Vulcanologists warned that several other volcanoes across Indonesia were showing increased activity.

Indonesia has the highest density of volcanoes in the world with about 500 in the 5,000-kilometer-long archipelago nation. Nearly 130 are active, and 68 are listed as dangerous.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/351674,evacuation-zone-volcano-rumbles.html.