Mount Sinabung Eruptions Displace More
Than 15,000 Indonesians
Flights cancelled and residents on high alert
as volcano spews rocks and ash.
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After
eight violent eruptions that occurred just hours apart on Sunday, Indonesia’s
National Disaster Mitigation Agency has called for the evacuations of more than
15,000 residents who live within a five-kilometer radius of Mount Sinabung. The
2,500-meter-tall volcano, located on the western Indonesian island of Sumatra,
has been increasingly active since September. The latest string of eruptions
has sent rocks and huge columns of gray ash as high as eight kilometers into
the sky.
“People
panicked last night as the eruption was accompanied by a loud thunderous sound
and vibrations. Then it started raining down rocks,” said Robert Peranginangin,
a local government spokesperson, in an interview with AFP. “They
ran helter-skelter out of their homes and cried for help.”
Clouds
of ash from Mount Sinabung, situated only 88 kilometers from the North Sumatra
provincial capital of Medan, is already causing flight disruptions. Kuala Namu
International Airport, located just outside of Medan and opposite Mount
Sinabung, has seen many flights cancelled or delayed.
Domestic
carrier Susi Air has halted all five of its daily flights from Kuala Namu,
citing the dangerous plumes of hot ash that are blanketing the region.
“It’s
quite thick. All of our planes in Kuala Namu were covered in ash this morning,”
Hadi Zulfadi, Susi Air’s operational manager, told The Jakarta Post. “This
could be very dangerous if we insist on travel. Thus, we decided to temporarily
halt operations.”
Malaysian
carrier Air Asia has also delayed departures until further notice.
Indonesian
authorities have reported no known loss of life due to the volcanic eruptions –
a stark contrast to the country’s deadly 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi that
claimed the lives of more than 350 people in central Java. Authorities did,
however, raise the danger warning for
Mount Sinabung.
“We
have raised the status to ‘caution,’ which is the highest of levels for
volcanic activity because we anticipate there will be more eruptions and
because the intensity of eruptions has been increasing,” read a statement by
the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
Mount
Sinabung sits atop the “Ring of Fire,” an earthquake and volcanic
eruption-prone area that stretches across the Pacific Ocean due to unstable
plate tectonics. It is just one of 129 active volcanoes in
Indonesia.
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