February 14, 2014
Airports closed and skies blackened as Mount Kelud in Indonesia erupts leading to calls for over 200,000 people to be evacuated from their homes
More than 100,000 people were evacuated from areas where volcanic dust and rocks lay up to eight inches thick after Mount Kelud on Java island exploded.
Reports from Indonesia’s most populous island said the blast was heard 125 miles away and a thick haze persisted over the island’s major towns Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city with a population of about 3 million, and Yogyakarta.
A 60-year-old woman and an 80-year-old man were killed in the village of Pandansari, about 4 miles from the mountain, when the roofs of their homes collapsed, while a 70-year-old man died after a wall collapsed while he waited to be evacuated from the same village.
The large international airport in Surabaya and airports in the cities of Malang, Yogyakarta, Solo, Bandung, Semarang and Cilacap were closed due to reduced visibility and the dangers posed to aircraft engines by ash, Transport Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said. Virgin Australia said it had cancelled its flights from Australia to several locations on Friday due to the eruption, including the resort islands of Bali in Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand.
“The eruption sounded like thousands of bombs exploding,” said Ratno Pramono, a 35-year-old farmer. “I thought doomsday was upon us. Women and children were screaming and crying.”
The volcano continued to rumble, spewing ash high into the air, throughout the night.
“It seems Kelud isn’t finished yet,” said Retno Dwiningtyas, a mother-of three-who was sitting in a government shelter watching television reports of her village showing crumpled roofs, farms and broken chairs blanketed with thick grey ash. “We are afraid for our cattle, our farm.”
Kelud is among about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which sits astride the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire” – a series of fault lines stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.
The fertile volcanic soil and the shortage of space on Java means hundreds of thousands of people live close to active volcanoes.
Kelud’s last major eruption was in 1990, when it spewed out searing fumes and lava that killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds. In 1919, a powerful explosion killed at least 5,160 people.
Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province erupted two weeks ago as authorities were allowing thousands of villagers who had been evacuated to return to its slopes, killing 16 people. Sinabung has been erupting for four months, forcing the evacuation of more than 30,000 people.
Source: The Telegraph
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