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Volatile Mt. Sinabung Still Won’t Allow Evacuees to Return Home
September 06, 2010

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Jakarta. Tens of thousands of people from the area around Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra now live in uncertainty, as the two latest eruptions have showed how unpredictable the volcano actually is.

Priyadi Kardono, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), on Sunday said authorities were in no hurry to send evacuees back to their villages as long as the situation remained unstable.

“We only have little data on this mountain, which makes it difficult to lower the danger status,” Priyadi said. “As you can see, it’s hard to predict. We said it was stable, and then it erupted.” 

The 2,640-meter-high Mt. Sinabung, located 110 kilometers southwest of the provincial capital Medan, on Aug. 29 erupted for the first time in 400 years, causing more than 25,000 residents to flee their homes.

It erupted for the second time the following day, spewing thick volcanic ash and causing a three-minute long earthquake.

After three days, the evacuees began returning home. But at 4:50 a.m. on Friday, the volcano sent a powerful new burst of hot ash high into the air, shaking homes and sending panicked villagers scurrying back to evacuation camps, in what appeared to be its loudest blast over the past week.

At around 6 p.m. on Friday, the volcano erupted once more, and locals say thick smoke billowed out of the crater throughout Saturday.

North Sumatra public relations official Jhonson Tarigan said evacuees in the Kabanjahe camp could not see the mountain because of the smoke.

“The mountain also could not be seen from the Evacuees Control Command Center where I am now while normally it could be seen clearly from here,” Jhonson said on Saturday night, adding that numbers of evacuees have been increasing since Friday.

The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) distributed at least 25,000 masks to residents in Tanah Karo district, North Sumatra, said Sumarsono, head of the PMI’s Disaster Mitigation Division, on Sunday.

He added that the PMI also has been distributing up to 10,000 kits consisting of soap, toothpaste, buckets and blankets to evacuees.
 

JG, Antara