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By APD writer Maverick
JAKARTA, Feb. 19 (APD) — Indonesia’s active volcano of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province erupted on Monday, spewing up to 5-kilometer high hot ash and coupled with significant land tremors, making it part of major eruption in the ensuing volcano activities since 2010, experts said.
The latest eruption occurred earlier in the day at 08.53 a.m. Western Indonesian Time (WIB), simultaneously coupled with land tremors that lasted in 607 seconds, Head of Mount Sinabung Monitoring outposts Armen Putra said.
Armen called on people to stay away from areas identified of dangerous at radius of up to 7 kilometers from the volcano’s summit.
He added that no casualty of inured ones reported from the eruption so far.
According to Armen, the hot clouds from the eruption slide down to South-Southeast and East-Southeast directions.
Meanwhile an official at provincial Center of Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG) Nurul Saori said the Monday’s eruption was a major one, bigger than the ones occurred earlier in the last few years.
“Due to its huge eruption scale, our eruption measurer gauge was a bit disrupted to measure the scale of the eruption,” Saori said in the province’s capital Medan, adding that following eruptions took place several times after the biggest one.
Provincial Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) has swiftly responded the developing condition by deploying several personnels in the access points of areas identified of affected by the eruption, conducting patrols to areas considered prone from impacts of the eruption and evacuate those living on the areas.
The move was intended to minimize the risk possibly encountered by the people related to the eruption.
Head of Provincial BPBD Martin Sitepu said that his personnel on the field have evacuated people of 20 families living in Payung village, the area which was totally blanketed by volcanic dust from the eruption, he added.
“The village was totally dark due to the eruption. The evacuation was necessary move to anticipate more eruptions possibly to occur in the near future,” he added.
The BPBD also distributed free maskers for the people to prevent them from being harmed by volcanic materials erupted by the volcano.
An official at the province’s airport administrator of Angkasa Pura II said that the eruption does not affect flight activities in the Kualanamu airport.
“The smoke produced by the volcano was not heading to flight areas from and to the airport,” Angkasa Pura II Corporate Communications Officer Yado Yarismanto said. The Kualanamu airport was 115 kilometers away from the volcano.
Indonesian authorities have imposed the highest alert status of level 4 since the volcano continued raging from 2010.
Its big eruption in 2016 claimed the lives of 7 ones and injured 2 others.
The volcano’s never-ending activities have displaced thousands of people living around it. Government has relocated the refugees, built new houses for them in replacement areas.
Dozens of housing compounds for 1,873 families affected by the volcano eruption were expected to be completed by this year with more compounds for 1,080 families were planned for completion next year.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
