Indonesian officials yesterday searched through thick ash for bodies after Mount Sinabung volcano erupted, killing at least 15 people, with the only sign of life an ownerless mobile phone ringing inside an abandoned bag.
Scorching clouds engulfed victims during the eruption on Saturday, leaving rescuers with little hope of finding survivors as they searched through ash up to 30cm thick.
About 170 people, including from the military and police, armed with chainsaws and oxygen apparatus spread out through the destruction in Sukameriah village, officials said.
Photo: AFP
Sukameriah, just 2.7km from Sinabung’s crater, is located in the “red zone” around the volcano, where human activities are strictly banned, disaster official Tri Budiarto said.
Residents had been evacuated.
“It’s very dangerous and completely out of bounds. But many of the tourists still secretly went to the area to take photographs,” Budiarto added.
The first team to enter the village yesterday morning emerged 15 minutes later empty-handed, a correspondent there said.
“There’s no sign of human life. All the crops were gone. Many houses were damaged and those still standing were covered in thick white ash. It was hard to walk in ash which nearly reached my calves,” said Gito, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
“We didn’t find bodies, but we picked up a bag belonging to one of the victims. The cellphone was ringing,” he said.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency, was unable to put a figure to the number of people still missing, but said there was a “chance” that the death toll might rise.
“A body was spotted near a tree, but we have yet to evacuate [it],” he said.
Officials said finding survivors was unlikely.
“I doubt it would be possible for anyone to survive the heat clouds yesterday. So far, we have not found any more bodies,” said Lieutenant Colonel Asep Sukarna, who led the search operation.
The volcano on Sumatra started erupting in September last year, but on Saturday spewed hot rocks and ash 2,000m into the air, blanketing the surrounding countryside with grey dust.
Fourteen people — mainly Indonesian tourists, including four high school students on a sightseeing trip — were killed by lethal heat clouds which cascaded down the volcano.
A 24-year-old man who was accompanying his father to pay respects at the graves of their relatives died from his injuries early yesterday, raising the death toll to 15, Nugroho said.
Two other people are being treated for serious burns at a local hospital.
Officials said the threat of more searing heat clouds and the weather might affect search operations.
“It’s cloudy today so we worry that it might rain,” Karo district spokesman Robert Peranginangin said. “If it rains, the area will be muddy and hard to walk, so we will have to stop search and rescue.”
Officials are also putting up more signs to warn people not to enter the area, officials said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not