JAKARTA – Indonesia’s most volatile volcano – one of 22 being closely watched following an increase in activity – unleashed its most powerful eruption in a deadly week yesterday, spewing searing clouds of gas and debris thousands of feet into the air.
There were no immediate reports of new casualties.
Hundreds of miles to the west, a break in weather was helping rescuers get aid to victims of an 18ft-high tsunami that slammed into several remote islands, sweeping entire villages into the sea. The twin disasters, occurring simultaneously on opposite ends of the seismically charged country, killed nearly 500 people in the last week, while severely testing the government’s emergency response network. In both cases, the military has been called in to help.
Almost all villagers living along Mount Merapi’s rumbling slopes have been evacuated, some forcibly by camouflaged troops, though many have returned to their homes during the day to check on livestock and crops.
Yesterday’s eruption was accompanied by several deafening explosions. As massive clouds spilled from the glowing cauldron and billowed into the air, debris and ash cascaded almost two miles down the northeastern slopes, said Subrandrio, who is monitoring activity at the mountain that has already killed 38 people.
More than 800 miles to the west, boats and helicopters were ferrying aid to the most distant corners of the Mentawai Islands, where last week’s tsunami destroyed hundreds of homes, schools, churches and mosques.
A military helicopter evacuated badly injured survivors who had languished in an overwhelmed hospital with only paracetamol to ease their pain, said Ade Edward, a disaster management official.
Among those evacuated was a baby girl born in a shelter after the tsunami and a 12-year-old girl with a life-threatening chest wound.
A C-130 transport aircraft, six helicopters and four motorised longboats were ferrying food and emergency supplies. Relief efforts were brought to a halt on Saturday by stormy weather and rough seas but picked up on Sunday and yesterday.
The tsunami death toll had reached 450 by yesterday, said Nelis Zuliastri from the National Disaster Management Agency.
Indonesia, a vast island nation of 235 million people, straddles a series of fault lines and volcanoes known as the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The fault that ruptured one week ago, running the length of the west coast of Sumatra island, also caused the 9.1-magnitude quake that unleashed a monster tsunami around the Indian Ocean in 2004, killing 230,000 people in a dozen countries. – (AP)