Big, bad boom on Bali
A VOLCANO ON the Indonesian island of Bali has rumbled to life with eruptions that dusted nearby resorts and villages with ash and forced the closure of the small international airport on neighboring Lombok island as towering gray plumes drifted east.
Mount Agung erupted on Saturday evening and three times early Sunday, lighting its cone with an orange glow and sending ash 13,000 feet into the atmosphere. It is still gushing and the ash clouds have forced the closure of Lombok island’s airport until at least 6 a.m. Monday.
Disaster officials said ash up to half an inch thick settled on villages around the volcano and soldiers and police had distributed masks.
Authorities warned anyone still in the exclusion zone around the volcano, 4½ miles from the crater in places, to leave.
Bali is Indonesia’s top tourist destination, with its gentle Hindu culture and surf beaches attracting 5 million visitors a year. Nearby Lombok is relatively undeveloped as a tourist destination.
Agung also had a minor eruption on Tuesday, but authorities have not raised its alert status from the second-highest level.
The volcano’s last major eruption, in 1963, killed about 1,100 people.