Muhammad Alif Sasmita
14609948
Mt. Slamet, Indonesia, with agricultural fields in the foreground.
I’ll be
brief, mostly because I’m still lost in a haze of jetlag and allergies, but …
Mt. Slamet on
the island of Java in Indonesia is showing signs of a “major eruption”.
Preparations have begun by the Indonesian government to evacuate people in the
event that the volcano erupts, however, it is unclear when that might be. Agus
Budianto, head of the volcanology unit at the Bandung , West Java-based
Volcanology and Disaster Mitigation Agency, said this about the current
activity at the volcano:
“Even though the earthquake
activity is increasing, we have not yet decided to raise Slamet to the highest
alert level, or awas status, as we think the danger level will
continue to fluctuate.”
It seems that Indonesian
officials are playing it cautiously, especially considering that the volcano has
already “sprayed molten lava up to 600
meters into the air and we have recorded bursts of volcanic ash up to 112 times
within a six-hours period.” Now, that sounds like a volcano in full
eruption to me, so I have no idea what it takes to get to the highest level of
alert in Indonesia . People have been told
to stay out of a 2-km exclusion zone and the area in most peril if the eruption
gets larger are Purbalingga, Bayumas, Pemalang, Tegal and Brebes districts in Central Java Province – they remain on 24-hour
alert to evacuate. However, it never seems promising when the report mentions
things like “hundreds of residents living at
the base of the mountain had said they would not evacuate until the mountain
was put on the highest level of alert.” That is a recipe for a
disaster.
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