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By APD writer Maverick
JAKARTA, Sept. 25 (APD) — Indonesian authorities would evacuated over 62,000 people living in areas considered prone from being mostly affected by eruption of Mount Agung, Bali’s active volcano, as symptoms to the eruption has vividly escalated.
Evacuation procedure for people living around the foot of the volcano, identified of Disaster Prone Areas (KRB), was necessary to avoid people from being harmed by volcanic materials from the eruption, National Disaster Mitigation Agency Spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on Monday.
As of now the related institutions have evacuated more than 48,500 ones from those areas.
“The evacuation is applied for people in radius of 9 kilometers from the crater plus those in radius of 12 kilometers in the north, southwest, southeast, south and northwest sides. Dangers from smoldering lava, hot stones and volcanic ashes were apparent in those areas,” he said in his office here.
Cattle were also being evacuated from those areas, he said, adding that authorities have prepared over 300 shelters for people to refuge.
He added that potential for the eruption is imminent as data gathered from several sources and instruments have led to the eruption.
According to Sutopo, image received from the satellite showed very active volcanic activities in Mount Agung’s crater.
“All monitoring results led to eruption. Process under the volcano, or magma, is very active at present,” he said, referring to the intense volcanic activities of the volcano located in Bali’s Karangasem regency.
He added that President Joko Widodo was scheduled to visit parts of refuge shelters in the regency on Tuesday.
In different occasion, head of Center of Volcanology and Mitigation of Geological Disaster (PVMBG) Kasbani said that potential for Mount Agung eruption has been intense, but no vulcanologist in the world can estimate the exact eruption time of a volcano.
“But one thing for sure that PVMBG continues to monitor and coordinate with regional governments and related institutions to anticipate the impacts should the disaster occurs,” Kasbani said on Monday.
Related to the intense volcanic activity in Mount Agung, Indonesian authorities have yet yet to impose flight ban to Bali, Indonesia’s most popular destination which was picked as world’s best destination this year by TripAdvisor.
Contingency plans have been set to anticipate the worse should the volcano erupt in the near future. Spokesman of Indonesian Transportation Ministry Baitul Ihwan said recently that 5 airports have been prepared to receive planes serving to Bali should the eruption occur.
Those five airports were in Bali’s adjacent island of Lombok, Semarang in Central Java, Makassar in South Sulawesi and Banyuwangi in East Java.
Mount Agung that standing tall at 3,124 meters above sea level is located 70 kilometers from Bali’s Kuta bustling tourism district. It has erupted in 1808, 1821, 1843 and 1963 which took the largest toll of more than 1,100 lives.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
