An eruption of the Semeru volcano, in the southeast of the Indonesian island of Java, completely engulfed houses and mosques in tons of volcanic debris, even destroying a bridge.
Better weather conditions allowed rescue teams today to resume evacuation efforts and the search for possible victims in the Lumajang district of East Java province.
Hundreds of soldiers were deployed today in the hardest-hit villages, Sumberwuluh and Supiturang, which were covered in ash, blocking the sunlight, but where no casualties have been reported so far.
Heavy monsoon rains eroded and eventually toppled the lava dome atop the 3,676-meter-high volcano, sending gas and lava rushing down the slopes toward the Besuk Kobokan River.
The gas rushed down the mountainside, suffocating entire villages and destroying a bridge that had just been rebuilt after an unexpected eruption last year that killed 51 people and displaced more than 10,000.
Lumajang district chief Thoriqul Haq said villagers, who are still reeling from the 2021 eruption, fled when they heard the mountain start to shake early on Sunday, meaning “deaths could be avoided.”
“They learned an important lesson about how to avoid the danger of an eruption,” Thoriqul Haq said.
The official said nearly 2,000 people had fled to emergency shelters at various schools, but many had returned home on Thursday to tend livestock and protect property.
Increased volcanic activity on Sunday afternoon prompted authorities to expand the danger zone to 13 kilometers around the crater, and scientists raised the volcano’s alert level to maximum, said Hendra Gunawan, who heads the Center for Indonesian Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation.
The Indonesian archipelago is located in the so-called “ring of fire” in the Pacific, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity, where thousands of earthquakes are recorded each year, most of them of weak to moderate magnitude, and with some 120 active volcanoes. .
Source: TSF
