Indonesia downgrades volcano alert level after weeks of eruptions

Fri, 03 Dec 2010

Jakarta - Indonesian authorities on Friday downgraded the alert level for Mount Merapi one notch below the highest as the volcano was winding down after a series of violent eruptions.

A series of eruptions at the volcano on the central Java island since October 26 killed at least 350 people and displaced more than 300,000 villagers. More than 200,000 of the displaced have returned home.

The first eruption came a day after the government put the volcano on the highest alert level.

Despite the downgrade of the alert level, the volcano could still emit clouds of searing gas and other debris, the National Disaster Management Agency said in a statement.

Agency chief Syamsul Muarif said the government would build temporary homes for some 550 families whose houses were destroyed in the eruptions.

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/356394,volcano-alert-level-eruptions.html.