Indonesia orders 200,000 to evacuate as volcano erupts

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/indonesia-orders-200-000/997284.html

Indonesia orders 200,000 to evacuate as volcano erupts

Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were ordered to evacuate after a volcano on the main island of Java erupted spectacularly, hurling red hot ash and rocks over a huge distance.

JAKARTA: Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were ordered to evacuate Friday after a volcano on the main island of Java erupted spectacularly, hurling red hot ash and rocks over a huge distance.
The alert status for Mount Kelud, considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes on densely populated Java, was raised late Thursday just hours before it began erupting.
TV pictures showed ash and rocks raining down on nearby villages as terrified locals fled in cars and on motorbikes towards evacuation centres.
National disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said that some 200,000 people from 36 villages in a 10-kilometre area around Kelud, in Kediri district in eastern Java, were being asked to evacuate.
"A rain of ash, sand and rocks is reaching up to 15 kilometres from the volcano's crater," he said.
"Sparks of light can be continuously seen at the peak."
The 1,731-metre Mount Kelud has claimed more than 15,000 lives since 1500, including around 10,000 deaths in a massive 1568 eruption.
It is one of some 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a belt of seismic activity running around the basin of the Pacific Ocean.
Earlier this month another volcano, Mount Sinabung on western Sumatra island, unleashed an enormous eruption, leaving at least 16 people dead.
Sinabung has been erupting on an almost daily basis since September, coating villages and crops with volcanic ash and forcing tens of thousands out of their homes.
- AFP/rw

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2559205/More-200-000-people-evacuated-five-airports-closed-volcano-erupts-Indonesian-island.html

More than 200,000 people evacuated and five airports closed as volcano erupts on Indonesian island

• Eruption sent plume of ash and sand 10 miles into the air and 300 miles to the west and northwest on island of Java
  
• All families living within a six-mile radius of Mount Kelud were ordered to leave their homes as debris rained down
  
• At least two people have been killed after roofs collapsed under the weight of the fallen ash, disaster agency says
  
• Five airports in Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Solo, Malang and Semarang have been shut down as visibility drops to 10m
  

By Simon Tomlinson
PUBLISHED: 04:14 EST, 14 February 2014 | UPDATED: 04:37 EST, 14 February 2014

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A volcano erupted on the heavily populated Indonesian island of Java today, sending a huge plume of ash and sand 10 miles into the air and forcing the evacuation of more than 200,000 people and the closure of five airports.
Indonesia's national disaster agency ordered the evacuation of all families living within a six-mile radius of Mount Kelud.
The volcano is 54 miles south of Indonesia's second biggest city Surabaya, a major industrial centre.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Nugroho said the eruptions had ceased, but the ash had spread as far as 312 miles to the west and northwest, causing more problems, especially for airlines.
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