Thousands ordered to evacuate because of active volcano
With the active volcano known as Mount Merapi threatening to erupt, officials in Indonesia have raised the alert to red, and have instructed thousands of people to evacuate the area around the country’s most active volcano.
With increasing lava spurts and with about 500 multi-phased volcanic earthquakes, seismic activity has increased exponentially endangering the lives of many that live on the densely populated island of Java.
Government volcanologist, Surono, explained the cause for this nationwide alarm in saying, “The magma has been pushed upwards due to the escalating seismic energy and it's about a kilometer (mile) below the crater."
And this has led to the order which requires 19,000 people to evacuate the designated 10-kilometer danger zone around the crater of Mount Merapi, while 3000 people have already moved to makeshift camps.
Despite the imminent danger that threatens the lives of young and old, there are some who wish to stay behind and take care of the livestock while letting the old people and children go first to a safety place. Their point-of-view is that as there haven’t been any visible threats, there is no point in leaving the livestock behind, and if Mount Merapi does erupt, they should be able to get away quickly as well.
On the other hand, the governor Bibit Waluyo has urged residents to stay calm as procedures have been put in place to deal with the disaster if something does go wrong as there has been a long history of deaths associated with these eruptions spanning almost a century now.
And while the experts consider the fact that this volcano has more energy than the last time when it erupted in 2006, what remains to be seen is if this eruption turns out to rival the worst eruption ever in terms of intensity that occurred in 1930 on the island that took the lives almost 1300 people.