Mount Merapi, located in the border of Central Java and Yogyakarta Provinces, erupted on Tuesday at 1.47am local time. The Indonesian Government has declared the volcano’s alert status on the previous day.
The phreatic eruption triggered an ash column reaching a height of up to 3,500 metres, Hanik Humaida, head of the Yogyakarta Office for Geology Disaster Technology Development (BPPTKG) said on Tuesday.
The eruption lasting for three minutes also produced quite a loud roar, he added. To anticipate a major disaster, the office has issued five recommendations for people living around the volcano.
The recommendations include : there must be no mountain hiking except for study on disaster mitigation; A radius of three kilometers from Merapi’s crater must be emptied from human’s activities; and People living in the third disaster prone zone (KRB) must be observant of the increased volcanic activities.
The public must not trust issues or information on the volcano’s eruption from unclear sources. They must follow directives from the regional government officers, and if they have questions, they should pose the questions directly to nearby Mount Merapi’s observation posts.
Source: Republika
Photo courtesy of tribunnews.com
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