Indonesia: Residents flee after volcano warning

People have abandoned their homes in a bustling city of 400,000 at the foot of Indonesia’s rumbling volcano today, cramming onto trains, buses and rented vehicles as authorities warned Mount Merapi could erupt again at any time.

A mass burial yesterday for many of the 141 people killed in the last two weeks served as a reminder of the mountain’s devastating power.

With the closest airport closed over clouds of ash, rail traffic leaving Yogyakarta has doubled in recent days, as residents – many of them students from the city’s universities – tried to get out.

“My parents have been calling ... saying ’You have to get out of there! You have to come home!’,” said Linda Ervana, a 21-year-old history student who was waiting with friends at a train station.

After days of failing to get rail tickets – long queues stretch through the main hall – her group decided to rent a minibus with other classmates.

“It feels like that movie 2012,” said her 22-year-old friend, Paulina Setin. “Like a disaster in a movie.”

Concerns about airborne ash after Friday’s massive eruption prompted many international airlines to cancel flights to the capital, Jakarta, days before US President Barack Obama’s planned trip to Indonesia – his second stop in a 10-day Asian tour.

All the airlines were flying again today and White House officials said Obama was still scheduled to touch down tomorrow.

Merapi, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has erupted many times in the last century, killing more than 1,400 people. But Friday was the mountain’s deadliest day since 1930, with nearly 100 lives lost.

Islam mandates that the dead be buried quickly, so authorities gave relatives three days to identify their loved ones. To speed up the process, most families chose to have their relatives interred in a mass grave, a common practice in Indonesia following a disaster.

One by one the bodies, some too charred to be identified, were lowered into a massive trench in the shadow of the volcano.

Merapi was still issuing explosive roars today as it shot clouds of gas and debris up to 3,000 feet in the air as ash and pyroclastic flows poured down its slopes.

“Based on what we’re seeing now, it could erupt again any time,” said Surono, a state volcanologist.

The National Disaster Management Agency said the overall death toll from the volcano climbed from 138 to 141 today after search and rescue teams found more bodies on the mountain.

The Indonesian government has put Yogyakarta, 20 miles away from Mount Merapi, on high alert.

Though there have been no orders to evacuate Yogyakarta, many residents have decided to go. Small hamlets on the edge of the city looked like ghost towns, houses shuttered, some with laundry still hanging outside.

“What choice do we have?” asked Sukirno, 37, as he sped away with his wife and their eight-year-old daughter on a motorbike, saying they would join relatives far away over fears the effect of the ash on their health.

The biggest threat to the city, experts say, is not searing gas clouds, but the Code River, which flows into the city centre from the 9,700-foot mountain.

It could act as a conduit for deadly volcanic mudflows that form in heavy rains, racing at speeds of up to 60mph and destroying everything in their path. A thick, black volcanic sludge has already inundated one city neighbourhood.

In Romomangun, the mud burst the banks and poured into buildings.

Nearly 280,000 people – many of whom normally live on the fertile slopes of the volcano – have jammed into emergency shelters. Many have complained of poor sanitation, saying there were not enough toilets or clean drinking water.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific Ocean.