Indonesia’s Mount Merapi, which has been erupting with increasing violence over the past two weeks, is causing people as far as 20 miles from the cone to flee in fear, AP reported.
The volcano, the most active in Indonesia, was still spewing clouds of gas and ash Monday as many of the 400,000 residents of the city of Yongyakarta crammed onto trains, buses, even rented cars, trying to escape the next deadly eruption.
The two week death toll stood at 141, after Friday’s enormous explosion sent pyroclastic flows streaming into villages outside the government’s supposed “safe zone.”
Yongyakarta is outside the new, larger danger zone, but many residents are fleeing of their own accord. The air is already choked with ash and smoke.
Worse still, the city straddles the Code river, which flows down Merapi’s slopes and would provide a ready channel for pyroclastic flows, should the volcano erupt even more severely, a real possibility.
“Based on what we’re seeing now, it could erupt again any time,” said state volcanologist Surono, according to AP.
Mass Burial
