Indonesian active Volcano erupted on Saturday

An Active Indonesian Volcano erupted on Saturday – Mount Semeru, 34 died and thousands went missing.

• Jakarta: 4, December 2021 Indonesian active volcano Mount Semeru erupted, shooting hot gas and volcanic gas in the air, causing a dark sky over villages in East Java’s Lumajang district.
• Indonesia’s national board for disaster management (BNPB) said about 2000 people have been rescued till Monday.
• Around 3000 houses and 40 schools have been destroyed by this debris as reported by the Command Post for Emergency Response of Mount Semeru.
• Mt Semeru has remained active since Saturday, with small eruptions keeping emergency workers and area residents on edge.
• There were three small eruptions on Tuesday, each spewing ash around a kilometre (3,300 ft) into the sky, authorities said.
• The deadly volcanic material was rolling down to Curah Kobokan village, which was evacuated on Saturday.

Rescue Efforts

• Rescue workers in Indonesia continued to dig through thick layers of hot ash and debris Tuesday to find survivors of a volcanic eruption
• One rescue volunteer said that he and his team evacuated 6 bodies of miners from river Curah Kobokan village, where they were mining sand in the river bank. His team was also not sure about how many other miners will still be there.
• Authorities have converted schools, mosques, village halls and village houses into evacuation centers, the statement said.
• Search crews deployed dogs on Tuesday to aid the operation.
• Rescuers have been battling dangerous conditions since the deadly weekend eruption, searching for survivors and bodies in the volcanic debris, wrecked buildings and destroyed vehicles.

Number of missing and dead expected to rise

• The number of dead and missing is expected to rise as much of the search area is mountainous and “geographically difficult,” said Andris Rufianto Putro, a field coordinator for Semeru emergency response at Indonesian Red Cross.
• National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said 56 people were hospitalised after the eruption, mostly with burns. He said rescuers are still searching for 27 villagers reported missing. Nearly 3,000 houses and 38 schools were damaged, he said.
• Cargo planes carrying food, tents, blankets and other supplies landed on Tuesday for distribution in temporary shelters.

President vows to rebuild the infrastructure as quickly as possible

• Indonesia’s president has visited areas devastated by a powerful volcanic eruption that killed at least 34 people and left thousands homeless, and vowed that communities would be quickly rebuilt.
• President Joko Widodo visited eruption-hit areas in Lumajang district in East Java province on Tuesday to reassure people that the government’s response is reaching those in need.
• After visiting survivors in shelters on a soccer field, he pledged to rebuild infrastructure, including the main bridge connecting Lumajang to other cities, and move about 2,970 houses out of danger zones.
• Officials earlier said residents of the hardest-hit villages will be relocated within the next six months, and each family waiting for a new house will be provided 500,000 rupiah ($34.50) a month in compensation.

Heavy rain is expected for the next three days, which could complicate evacuation efforts, a meteorological agency official said late on Sunday. 

The eruption of the 3,676-meter (12,060-foot) mountain eased pressure that had been building under a lava dome in its crater. But experts warned that the dome could further collapse, causing an avalanche of blistering gas and debris trapped beneath it.

Semeru, which according to volcano experts has been in an eruptive phase since 2014, had started emitting hot clouds and lava flows recently, prompting the authorities to issue warnings for people not to go near it from Wednesday.

“The volcanic ash deposits are still at high temperatures, and the deeper we dig the hotter it gets,” Wayan said.

Semeru, also known as Mahameru, has erupted many times in the last 200 years. Still, as on many of the 129 volcanoes monitored in Indonesia, tens of thousands of people live on its fertile slopes. It last erupted in January, with no casualties.

Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

By Anjali

Content Writer (Erakina by RTMN)

8/12/2021