Search for victims delayed as Indonesia’s Mt Sinabung spews ash into the sky

A new eruption of ash and steam from Indonesia's Mt. Sinabung has put on hold a search for victims of the Saturday's major eruption that has claimed 16 lives.

The volcano erupted at around 10:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, February 1st, just a day after local residents who were previously evacuated due to the eruptions and pyroclastic flows were told that they could return to their homes. This fast-moving flow of hot ash and gas quickly swept down the mountainside, traveling roughly five kilometres away from the crater. It was followed by two more flows over the next hour.

According to reports, search parties checking villages on the volcano slopes recovered 14 bodies, along with three people who had suffered burns. The death toll had risen to 16 on Sunday when another body was discovered and one of the burn victims died of their injuries. All of the victims were from the village of Suka Meriah, which is roughly three kilometres from the volcano. Evacuation zones had stretched out to well beyond that range over the past few weeks, due to the volcano's increased activity. It's still unclear whether those restrictions were lifted prior to the weekend eruption, or if those on the mountainside had simply violated the restrictions put on travel in the area.

A resident runs to escape the billowing ash cloud engulfing their village.Search efforts for victims resumed on Monday, since three people are apparently still missing from the eruption on Saturday. Those efforts had to be delayed, though, when the volcano spewed out another blast of ash and gas, reaching 2.5 kilometres into the sky. This mixture of burning hot ash and poisonous gas would not only have made searching difficult simply due to obscuring everything in the area, but with temperatures reaching several hundred degrees and combined with a mix of poisonous gases, venturing into the area could have been deadly. Authorities were to decide later on Monday if the search would be called off permanently.

At the other end of the island nation, the disaster mitigation agency raised the alert level on Mount Kelud of East Java to level 2, according to state-run Antara News, and there are now around 20 volcanoes in Indonesia that are currently on alert status. The alert statuses of most of the volcanoes are simply to note a level of activity above normal. Mt. Sinabung is at the highest alert level: level 3.

Today, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake shook the sea floor near Kepulauan Barat Daya, and was followed by several aftershocks. These may be unrelated to the volcanic activity, but eruptions are often associated with tremors and earthquakes, as magma shifts under the ground.

Tuesday 04 February 2014

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