Ash plume ‘a mile high’
JAKARTA: Thousands of villagers living near Indonesia’s Mount Semeru were racing for refuge yesteray to the wail of emergency sirens as lava snaked towards their homes under a black sky after the volcano erupted.
Locals fled on motorbikes, sometimes three at a time, as a mushroom cloud of ash approached and monsoon rains lashed the area in East Java.
“It was dark and raining. The rain did not consist only of water, but also volcanic ash. It was like mud,” said an AFP journalist on the scene.
Indonesian authorities raised their alert level for the volcano to its highest after the crater spewed hot ash a mile into the sky. It came only a year after the volcano last erupted, killing 51 people and laying waste to homes.
Rescue workers were once again rushing to evacuate villagers in the area yesterday as a colossal plume of ash engulfed all light.
One emergency responder, Gunawan, filmed the clouds above as a midday sky turned ominously dark as though it were midnight.
“It’s getting dark, bro,” he said as a seismograph whistled in the background.
The internet was down and phone signals were patchy, but villagers were alerted to the danger by sirens and the beating of bamboo drums by local volunteers.
Semeru is the highest mountain on Indonesia’s main island of Java and lies around 800km south-east of the capital, Jakarta, among a cluster of craters in a moon-like landscape.
The South-east Asian archipelago nation has nearly 130 active volcanoes.
An eruption last year left locals combing through belongings after their homes were blanketed in ash.
It remains to be seen what damage the eruption will inflict this time, with the lava still edging towards homes and their owners told to remain 8km from the crater.
Many villagers, mostly women and children, took shelter in local halls and
at schools.
Gunawan, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, said everyone was safe for now, even if their possessions and homes might not be by day’s end.
As he flashed a peace sign at a camera against the backdrop of dark haze and monsoon rains at his rescue post, he tried to reassure people.
“Salam tangguh, salam presisi!” he said, meaning “cheers”, his voice relaxed but muffled behind a gas mask.
The eruption prompted authorities to raise the alert status to the highest level. “Hot avalanches” caused by piles of lava at the tip of the 3 676m volcano slid down after the eruption, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said in a statement.
The increased threat level “means the danger has threatened the people’s settlement and the volcano’s activity has escalated”, Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center spokesperson Hendra Gunawan told broadcaster Kompas TV.
No casualties or injuries were reported immediately after the eruption, but Gunawan warned nearby residents not to travel within 8km of the crater after the threat level was raised to four.
Officials said 1 979 people were taken to 11 shelters, with at least six villages affected by the eruption.
Images on local TV showed evacuees, mostly women and children, taking shelter at a school. Videos shared with AFP by local rescue group Irannala Rescue showed a huge, black cloud rising from the volcano’s crater, engulfing the sky and blocking the sun in nearby villages.
The villages were being battered by monsoon rains by the afternoon and the rainfall was mixing with volcanic ash, according to Kompas.
Residents were also told to avoid a south-eastern area 13km along a river in the direction where the ash was travelling.
“A lot of people have started to go down,” Thoriqul Haq, the local administration chief for Lumajang, where the volcano is located, told Kompas TV.
Most residents in the two most-threatened villages had evacuated, said Patria Dwi Hastiadi, spokesperson of the Lumajang Disaster Mitigation Agency.
Japan’s weather agency had earlier warned that a tsunami was possible in the southern islands of Miyako and Yaeyama in Okinawa prefecture, Kyodo news agency reported, but the country’s meteorological agency said no significant tidal changes were observed.
The local rescue agency distributed free masks to the public because of the threat of polluted air to vulnerable residents.
As rescuer Gunawan, who has the same name as the PVMBG spokesperson, filmed clouds above him in East Java after the eruption, a video showed the sky quickly turning to black as a colossal plume of ash engulfed any light.
“I’ve promised you, we won’t miss it again,” he told residents in a local Javanese dialect, appearing to refer to last year’s eruption.
Last year’s disaster left entire streets filled with mud and ash that swallowed houses and vehicles, with nearly 10 000 people seeking refuge.
A bridge that connects two districts in the area that was being rebuilt after last year’s eruption was heavily damaged again yesterday, according to a PVMBG media officer.
Semeru’s alert status had remained at its second-highest level since its previous major eruption in December 2020, which also forced thousands to flee and left villages covered.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.
The South-east Asian archipelago nation has nearly 130 active volcanoes.
A volcano in the strait between Java and Sumatra islands erupted in late 2018, causing an underwater landslide and tsunami that killed more than 400 people.