Thousands evacuated as Indonesia’s ‘great mountain’ spews
Thousands of village people have been evacuated after Indonesia’s highest volcano spewed choking ash and molten rivers of lava down its slopes.
The sky turned black and the earth rumbled as Mt Semeru — the ‘great mountain’ — erupted on the most densely populated island of Java, triggering ‘hot avalanches’.
The explosion was caused when the lava dome collapsed as monsoon rains eroded the top which sits at 3676m, said the National Disaster Management Agency.
Several villages were blanketed with falling ash, blocking out the sun, but no casualties have been reported.
Nearly 2000 residents were evacuated from the area around the volcano.
They fled to temporary shelters, their faces smeared with volcanic dust and rain.
Thick columns of ash were blasted more than 1500m into the sky while searing gas and lava flowed down Semeru’s slopes toward a nearby river.
Tweet from @SquigglyVolcano
Increased activities of the volcano on Sunday afternoon prompted authorities to widen the danger zone to 8km from the crater, said Hendra Gunawan, who heads the Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Centre.
He said scientists raised the volcano’s alert level to the highest and people were advised to keep off the southeastern sector along the Besuk Kobokan River, which is in the path of the lava flow.
The Gladak Perak bridge which was rebuilt after last year’s eruption. Photo: Twitter
Semeru’s last major eruption was in December last year, when it blew up with fury that left 51 people dead in villages that were buried in layers of mud.
Several hundred others suffered serious burns and the eruption forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 people. The government moved about 2970 houses out of the danger zone.
The sky turns black above a village at the base of the volcano. Photo: Twitter
Semeru, also known as Mahameru, has erupted numerous times in the last 200 years. Still, as is the case with many of the 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, tens of thousands of people continue to live on its fertile slopes.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 270 million people, sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines, and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.
-Reuters
