Evacuation centres, hotels fill up Flurry of activity hints at N. Korea missile test — Reports
Indonesia extends Bali airport closure as Mount Agung’s eruption looms
KARANGASEM, Indonesia: Evacuation centres and hotels in Bali filled up yesterday with tens of thousands seeking refuge as a volcano on the Indonesian resort island threatened to erupt, forcing the closure of the main airport for a second day.
Stranded tourists hunted for accommodation while frightened villagers living in Mount Agung’s shadow made their way to more than 200 evacuation centres as the mountain gushed smoke and ash.
The rumbling volcano — which last erupted in 1963 killing around 1,600 people — forced Indonesian authorities to close Bali’s airport for a second day yesterday as experts raised the alert level to maximum.
Towering columns of thick grey smoke have been rising from the mountain since last week, and in the last few days have begun shooting into the sky, forcing all flights to be grounded until at least Wednesday morning.
Ash is dangerous for planes as it makes runways slippery and can be sucked into their engines.
Officials have warned that the volcano, which looms over the tropical holiday paradise, could erupt at any moment.
Some 40,000 people have abandoned their homes in the danger zone but as many as many as 100,000 will likely be forced to leave, disaster agency officials have said.
“Volcanic ash is still spewing. It’s thick and rising very high — up to three or four kilometres from the crater,” said I Gede Suantika, an official at Indonesia’s volcanology agency.
The exclusion zone around Agung, which is 75 kilometres from the beachside tourist hub of Kuta, has also been widened to 10 kilometres.
As of yesterday some 443 flights had been cancelled, affecting more than 120,000 passengers in Bali, a top holiday destination that attracts millions of foreign tourists every year.
Inn operator I Wayan Yastina Joni was among the few hoteliers willing to take up an appeal by Bali’s governor and tourism agency to supply free rooms to thousands of out-of-luck visitors, though some offered discounts.
“I don’t mind giving free accommodation for tourists I already know,” said the owner of the Pondok Denayu Homestay.
“This is nobody’s fault. It’s a natural disaster that no one expected,” he added.
Hundreds of tourists are being shuttled to Indonesia’s second city Surabaya, about 13 hours’ drive away, so they can fly out of the country.
“We are preparing 10 buses and more can likely be provided later today,” Bali Transportation Agency Head Agung Sudarsana said earlier yesterday.
The airport on nearby Lombok island — also a popular tourist destination east of Bali — has opened and closed several times in the past few days. It is currently open but may yet be shuttered again, officials said.
Mount Agung’s last eruption in the early sixties was one of the deadliest ever seen in a country with nearly 130 active volcanoes.
“I am very worried because I have experienced this before,” 67-year-old evacuee Dewa Gede Subagia, who was a teenager when Agung last roared, told AFP.
“I hope this time I won’t have to evacuate for too long. In 1963, I left for four months.”
Experts said however that Agung’s recent activity matches the build-up to the earlier disaster, which ejected enough debris — about a billion tonnes — to lower global average temperatures by 0.2 - 0.3 degrees Celsius for about a year.
“What we are seeing at the moment are small explosions, throwing out hot gases and fragments of molten rock, or ash,” said David Pyle, a volcano expert at Oxford University.
“The probability of a large eruption is high, but this may take some days or weeks to unfold.”
Agung rumbled back to life in September, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people living nearby. Its activity decreased in late October and many returned to their homes.
However, on Saturday the mountain sent smoke up into the air for the second time in a week in what volcanologists call a phreatic eruption — caused by the heating and expansion of groundwater.
Then on Monday so-called cold lava flows appeared — similar to mud flows and often a prelude to the blazing orange lava of the popular imagination.
Indonesia is the world’s most active volcanic region. The archipelago nation with over 17,000 islands lies on the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic and seismic activities.
Last year, seven people were killed after Mt. Sinabung on the western island of Sumatra erupted. A 2014 eruption at Sinabung killed 16. — AFP SEOUL: Radio signals and radar activity detected at a North Korean missile base have raised concerns the reclusive regime may be preparing a new missile test, news reports in Seoul and Tokyo said yesterday.
The North has stoked international alarm over its banned nuclear missile programme, but it has not launched a missile test since Sept 15, raising hopes that ramped-up sanctions are having an impact.
However, the South Korean news agency Yonhap cited a government source as saying that a missile-tracing radar was switched on at an unspecified base on Monday, and there had been a flurry of telecoms traffic.
“It’s true that active movements have been detected at a North Korean missile base,” the source reportedly said. “Signs like those spotted Monday have recently been detected frequently.”
“We need to watch a while longer before determining whether the North is preparing a missile launch or gearing up for (its own) winter drill that starts Friday.”
A South Korean defence ministry spokesman declined to comment on the report, but similar accounts from Tokyo caused a temporary slump on the stock exchange there.
The Kyodo news agency quoted sources as saying the Japanese government was on alert after detecting radio signals suggesting North Korea might be preparing for a missile launch.
“North Korea might launch a missile within the next few days,” one of the sources was quoted as saying.
However, the Japanese sources also said that as satellite images have not shown any missile or moveable launch pad, the signals might only be related to winter training for the North Korean military.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un visited a new catfish farm northeast of Pyongyang, its state media said yesterday, in the latest of a series of economic outings that have coincided with a lull in weapons testing.
In September the North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test and staged an intermediate-range missile launch over Japan.
But tensions are expected to spike again as the United States and South Korea kick off a largescale air force drill on Monday in a new show of force against the North.
The five-day exercise, Vigilant Ace, involves 12,000 US personnel and an unspecified number of South Korean service members flying more than 230 aircraft including F-22 Rapter stealth fighters and other cutting-edge weapons at US and South Korean military bases.
Pyongyang routinely condemns such exercises, labelling them preparation for war. — Reuters
Volcanic ash is still spewing. It’s thick and rising very high — up to three or four kilometres from the crater. I Gede Suantika, Indonesia’s volcanology agency official