Indonesia orders 200,000 to evacuate
- AAP
- February 14, 2014
HUNDREDS of thousands of Indonesians have been evacuated and three international airports have been closed after a volcano on Java erupted spectacularly, hurling red-hot ash and rocks.
The alert status for Mount Kelud, considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes on densely populated Java, was raised late on Thursday just hours before it began erupting.
TV images showed ash and rocks raining down on nearby villages, while AFP correspondents at the scene saw terrified locals covered in ash fleeing in cars and on motorbikes towards evacuation centres.
International airports in the Javanese cities of Surabaya, Yogyakarta and Solo were closed temporarily, Transport Ministry director general of aviation Herry Bakti said on Metro TV, which showed images of grounded planes covered in ash.
National disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said that some 200,000 people from 36 villages in a 10km area around Kelud, in Kediri district in eastern Java, had been told to evacuate.
"A rain of ash, sand and rocks is reaching up to 15km," from the volcano's crater, he said.
Many of the men displaced tried to return to their homes near the foot of the volcano early on Friday morning to gather their families' clothing and valuables, but a continuous downpour of volcanic ash and rocks sent them running back.
At a temporary shelter in the village of Bladak, some 10km from the volcano's crater, around 400 displaced people, including children, slept on the floor wearing safety masks.
The Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said there was little chance of another eruption as powerful as Thursday night's, but tremors around the volcano could still be felt on Friday as volcanic materials continued to blanket the rooftops of entire villages.
Communities within the affected 15km radius began clearing piles of grey ash as high as five centimetres from roads to avoid accidents, Nugroho said.
--
__._,_.___
No comments:
Post a Comment