Thousands of villagers fled their homes in the path of red-hot lava flows oozing from Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano yesterday as officials said an eruption looked imminent.
But many residents were still reluctant to leave, despite a mandatory evacuation order, they said.
"Merapi's alert status has been upgraded to the highest level of alert," said Jilal, from the volcanology office in Yogyakarta, a university town 30km from the volcano.
PHOTO: EPA
"The increasing volcanic activity has led us to make this decision," Jilal said.
Merapi has been spewing ominous hot volcanic ash and shooting thick white smoke hundreds of meters into the air from its boiling crater.
The volcano was raised to a "stand-by" alert level a month ago and its activity has escalated steadily since then.
Jilal said 30 blazing lava flows were reported to be streaming toward the Krasak and Boyong rivers along the southwestern slopes of the mountain, reaching a distance of 1.5km from the volcano's peak on Friday.
Three out of the five districts around the slopes of Merapi -- which means Mountain of Fire -- are considered to be in the immediate danger zone.
Edy Susanto, head of Magelang district's evacuation agency, said officials since late Friday night had begun evacuating some 7,000 residents living in eight villages on the western and southwestern slopes of Merapi.
"We are trying our best not to cause panic among the residents but our main problem is some of these people refuse to be evacuated," Susanto said.
Traditional beliefs hold that Merapi will only erupt after certain omens, some of which appear in dreams, leaving many more superstitious residents reluctant to leave without them becoming apparent.
Some residents however have told officials they are worried about their property, cattle and crops being taken if they depart.
Susanto said officials began evacuating people hours before Merapi's alert status was officially raised.
"Our main priority is for these people to be safely evacuated with the help of the armed forces, soldiers and police," Susanto said, adding that the residents would be taken to some 30 refugee shelters located across Magelang.
A new lava dome has been rapidly forming at the peak of Mount Merapi, growing 75m in two weeks. Scientists have said that its collapse will release lava as well as deadly nuees ardentes, or clouds of volcanic gases, ash, and dust reaching temperatures up to 500oC.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
‘CROWN JEWEL’: Washington ‘can delay and deter’ Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan, but it is ‘a very delicate situation there,’ the secretary of state said US President Donald Trump is opposed to any change to Taiwan’s “status quo” by force or extortion and would maintain that policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Hugh Hewitt Show host on Wednesday. The US’ policy is to maintain Taiwan’s “status quo” and to oppose any changes in the situation by force or extortion, Rubio said. Hewitt asked Rubio about the significance of Trump earlier this month speaking with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) at the White House, a meeting that Hewitt described as a “big deal.” Asked whether the meeting was an indication of the
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
RSS