Indonesian volcano erupts again; death toll at 44

[pinboy3niner]

Source: Associated Press

Published - Nov 04 2010
By SLAMET RIYADI, Associated Press – 41 mins ago

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia – Eruptions at Indonesia's deadly volcano appeared to be intensifying Thursday as towering clouds of ash shot from the crater with a thunder-like roar, dusting towns up to 150 miles (250 kilometers) away and forcing motorists to switch on their headlights during the day.

The death toll climbed to 44 — with six more lives recorded in the last 24 hours — and the government repeated orders to airlines to stay clear of the unpredictable mountain.
<snip>

But even those who have dedicated a lifetime to studying it have been baffled by its erratic behavior since its first Oct. 26 eruption, which has been followed by more than a dozen other powerful blasts and thousands of volcanic tremors.
<snip>

The fear is that a new lava dome forming in the mouth of the crater will collapse, triggering a deadly surge of up to 1,800 degree Fahrenheit (1,000 degree Celsius) ash and gas — known to experts as pyroclastic flows — at speeds of 60 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour).



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101104/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_disasters

[Name removed]

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[Turborama]

15. I usually like your jokes, but this one is in extremely bad taste...

...considering what's going on in Indonesia right now.

[Posteritatis]

22. FFS, not everything needs to have the US awkwardly manhandled into it. (nt)

[Odin2005]

23. Very bad taste.

:puke:

[Warpy]

2. They've moved evacuation centers farther away now

Let's hope they're far enough and that this volcano doesn't blow itself to pieces the way St. Helens did.

[Turborama]

3. Dozens die in new Mount Merapi eruption in Indonesia (after "worst eruption in a century")

Source: BBC

At least 49 people have been killed in the latest eruption of Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano - more than doubling the death toll since it became active again last week.

Dozens are being treated for burns and respiratory problems after a gas cloud hit villages with even greater force than the previous eruptions.

More than 90 people are now said to have been killed. An estimated 75,000 residents have been evacuated from the area.

Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, is located in a densely populated area in central Java.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11699945

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Merapi spits out ‘worst eruption’ in a century

Slamet Susanto and Imung Yuniardi, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta/Semarang | Fri, 11/05/2010 9:25 AM

Mount Merapi showed no signs of abating on Thursday, shooting clouds of hot ash 10 kilometers into the sky. Volcanic activity on Thursday led authorities to recommend the evacuation of 32 villages near Merapi in four regencies in Central Java and Yogyakarta.

=snip=

“This is Merapi’s worst eruption in the last 100 years,” Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry geology chief R. Sukhyar, referring to the scale of activity and the size of the volcano’s exclusion zone.“It’s never acted like this before,” Surono said as quoted by AP. “It looks like we may be entering an even worse stage.”

Currently, all residents living within 12 kilometers of Mt. Merapi have been evacuated, after authorities expanded the volcano’s danger zone from 10 to 15 kilometers on Wednesday.

Sukhyar said magma was now forming 100 kilometers under the volcano and might trigger a larger eruption. “Considering the danger from Merapi, we recommended that the 32 villages be emptied and residents evacuated to safe zones,” he said.

Thursday’s eruptions were accompanied by thundering sounds that could be heard up to 25 kilometers away.

More: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/11/05/merapi-spits-out-%E2%80%98worst-eruption%E2%80%99-a-century.html

Bloomberg reports Yogyakarta airport has been closed: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-04/indonesia-extends-safety-zone-as-merapi-toll-rises.html

Photos and videos posted in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4598519

I'll let you guys know if the cloud starts reaching here or the volcanoes where I live start acting up.

[countryjake]

4. A tragedy for so many!

This is horrible, they say it's a thousand times worse than last week's eruption. I wonder how many of those villagers evacuated last time had gone back home...

[HillbillyBob]

5. It is too bad we do not have access to true news channels.

instead of ratings generating bs celebrity nuz...

[Turborama]

6. Sky News are reporting the current death toll as 98. The BBC have added a video report...

To the link in the OP, repost: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11699945

Al Jazeera English just said they have never recorded activity like this before and there could be a massive eruption building up which would affect millions of people.

[Turborama]

7. Breaking news report from Indonesian TV (Video)

Warning, contains footage of dead people (if you use Google Chrome it will translate the written reports, too): http://www.metrotvnews.com/read/newsvideo/2010/11/05/116339/Ini-Video-Eksklusif-Desa-Argomulyo-Terbakar-Awan-Panas-Merapi

[Turborama]

8. Photos from the refugee camp my wife's friend has moved to...

This is in Yogyakarta, where they have been moved to.

Waiting for water


They're now living inside this church



Yogyakarta on Wednesday


She has also taken an amazing photo of the pyroclastic flow with the ash cloud above it which she took when they escaped and I'm trying to find a buyer for at the moment. As soon as it's sold I'll post it here.

[FedUpWithIt All]

9. There are 21 volcanoes in Indonesia right now showing increased activity.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gM9vTJim8rGCQHAyIW1BE9AX1PwA?docId=63155cb707594738b4fc72472b4a0b6e

Anak Krakatau has exploded and has been releasing toxic gases.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/krakatau-joins-indonesias-volcanic-awakening/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Twin volcanoes in Kamchatka were exploding last week and Grimsvotn in Iceland is also on alert.

http://www.herald.ie/world-news/iceland-on-volcano-alert-2407239.html

[Turborama]

10. Those two reports are very informative, thanks for sharing them

I live at the base of one of those active volcanoes and am becoming increasingly worried.

[FedUpWithIt All]

18. Please stay safe.

I wanted to share this with you in case you did not see it below.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4600706&mesg_id=4603504

[femrap]

13. We could well see

land mass changes. Mother Nature is pissed. I don't blame her.

Having lived in N.CA during the 1989 La Prieta earthquake, I understand and respect her power.

[Turborama]

11. Just under 1.3 milllion people advised to seek shelter in Indonesia

A volcano in Central Java of Indonesia re-erupted earlier Friday, the biggest since Oct. 26, killing at least 54 people and injuring seriously 66 others, bringing the total fatality to 91, over 1.3 million people to seek shelters, officials said.

Mount Merapi of 2,968 meters high, erupted again for three hours, starting from at about 12:00 a.m. Jakarta time Friday (1700 GMT Thursday), unleashing continuously hot ash by up to 8 km high and spreading to all direction, ash reached 45 km away, and leading the authorities to extend evacuation zone to 20 km, Volcanology Agency official in Yogyakarta Kurniati Rinekso said.

Authorities have closed the main airport of Adi Sucipto in Yogyakarta province, one of the busiest airport in the country, since 06:00 a.m. Jakarta time Friday, (2300 GMT Thursday) as ash still covers the airport, spokesman of Transport Ministry Bambang Ervan told Xinhua.

=snip=

Spokesperson of the national Disaster and Mitigation Management Agency Nelis Zuliasri told Xinhua that there were 1,298,406 people stay in the radius of 20 km and they must leave the area.

Full article: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7189680.html

[Turborama]

14. Death toll rises to 122 as Indonesia volcano torches villages

'We're totally overwhelmed here!' hospital spokesman says

msnbc.com news services

updated 1 hour 56 minutes ago


MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia — Searing gas avalanched down an Indonesian volcano with a thunderous roar, torching houses and trees and incinerating villagers as they fled Mount Merapi's worst eruption in a century. Dozens of bodies found Friday raised the death toll to 122.

The injured — with clothes, blankets and even mattresses fused to their skin by the 1,400 degree Fahrenheit heat — were carried away on stretchers following the first big explosion just before midnight.

Soldiers joined rescue operations in hardest-hit Bronggang, a village nine miles from the crater, pulling at least 78 bodies from homes and streets blanketed by ash up to one-foot deep.

Crumpled roofs, charred carcasses of cattle, and broken chairs — all layered in white soot — dotted the smoldering landscape. Merapi was active throughout the day Friday.

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40022130/ns/world_news-asiapacific/



Photos (warning, image 8 is extremely graphic): http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/features/article_1596898.php/Indonesia-Mount-Merapi-Eruption-Aftermath-Pictures?page=1

More photos here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/volcanic-ash-entombs-indonesian-villages/article1787161/

[Baclava]

16. It's all cracking open over there, subduction zone havoc

I'll take a hurricane anyday over pyroclastic flows

http://www.suite101.com/content/mount-merapi-volcano-known-for-being-active-and-deadly-a301153

[FedUpWithIt All]

17. Unprecendented Magma resevoir under Merapi.

Translated from Der Spiegel.
Menace by a " gigantic spongy body, a kind of mush "

A discovery which was done four years ago under the mountain strengthens the worry of the researchers: There apparently bubbles a gigantic magma reservoir. Hereditary level waves, the seismologists in the subsoil had measured, slow down under Java considerably. The object in the ground is "unprecedented", says Birger Lühr, volcano researcher in the georesearch center Potsdam. There lies a " more gigantically spongy body, a kind of mush ". Presumably it concerns magma, reports Lühr. A coarse estimate shows that the reservoir contains three times a lot of magma as with the eruption of the likewise Indonesian volcano Tambora was spitted out in 1815 - to the biggest outbreak of the past 10,000 years which allowed to cool worldwide the climate on years.

" What the body has to signify at last, however, we do not know ", says Lühr. Anyhow the word of a "mega eruption" circulates among scientists. Publicly they would not like to pronounce the concept, however not to be mocked as a disaster preacher. " We can only speculate what the volcano will do ", says Birger Lühr. The Merapi is barely computable.

To hear bang thousands kilometers away

However, any time a mega eruption threatens like in the neighboring Krakatau in 1883 when the complete volcano cone weggesprengt became - it was the second-strongest volcano eruption of the modern times. The bang of the Krakatau should go still thousands kilometers away has been to hear. The volcano spitted twenty times a lot of cinder like the Mount Saint Helens in the USA in 1980.

The similar is also possible with the Merapi, says Lühr: " Theoretically the whole mountain can explode like the Krakatau in 1883 ". Hundred thousands of people would be in danger, because the collapse of the mountain could move the big magma reservoir under the volcano into movement: Releases from the rock drinking load, if it could burst out - the outbreak would be if possible the richest in victim one of the history of mankind. The fact that the today's volcano cone rises in the ruins of an earlier volcano, shows that in the Merapi such an eruption - a so-called Superparoxysmus - has already occurred.

Volcanologists alarms

However, nowadays he does not count on such a big eruption, says Lühr. The Merapi seems to be fairly dependable at the moment: Since the seventies years lava from the Merapi streams regularly. She cools off, in the end, and blocks the chimney. But already after few years liquid magma to the stoppers presses, the so-called cathedral, from the mountain - the next outbreak starts. The Merapi is nowadays " an open system ", says Lühr - this diminishes his Explosivität because less pressure is based. However, a blockage of the chimney would be dangerous. Therefore, an "activity rubbish" of the Merapi a few days ago has alarmed the volcanologists, reports Lühr.

A little reassuringly, nevertheless, appears a comparison with the Krakatau: Eruptions of many months were also walked at the head of the big outbreak of the Krakatau in 1883 as they take place now in the Merapi. Researchers expect that other signals would announce a mega eruption: The flanks would presumably go baggy, earthquakes the mountain shake, gases and steams increase climb up.

Whether such signs were really registered, nevertheless, seems unclear. Volcanologists criticize that the promoted cinder amount of the Merapi would not be estimated nowadays carefully enough. With suitable warning signals, says Lühr, the town Yogyakarta with her more than half a million inhabitants would have to be removed majority-partly.

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,727092,00.html

[Turborama]

19. Holy shit!

Thanks for that, FedUpWithIt All. I've taken that very scary analysis into consideration and asked my wife to call her elderly mother, who lives in Java, to suggest she evacuates here for the time being. We live on another island and hopefully far enough away if it did erupt like that.

Having said that, we do live near another active volcano and every time I hear thunder now I'm wondering whether it could could be something else...

[pinboy3niner]

20. Stay safe, Turborama

And thanks for your updates.

:hi:

[FedUpWithIt All]

21. You're most welcome.

I am glad if it helped. The earth has been behaving rather unpredictably so i think being aware of any factors we have available is important. I do wish your family well. Stay safe!!!

[Odin2005]

24. Mega-eruptions are amazing.

Until 535AD Java and Sumatra were connected by a ridge of land centered on Krakatoa. That year Krakatoa exploded, causing famines across the world, destroying several emerging kingdoms in Indonesia, and severing the ridge connecting Sumatra and Java. These eruptions are so huge that they can literally re-write maps.

[Odin2005]

25. Good lord, I hope that thing doesn't explode like Tambora.

:(

These volcanoes are extremely explosive because of all the water sucked down with the subducting plates, which makes the magma more granitic and sticky.

[Vehl]

26. really sad news :(

My thoughts are with those who lost family and friends in this tragedy

sometimes even the most advanced human technologies cannot do anything to change nature's wrath

[denem]

27. 65 (more) die after volcano erupts in Indonesia (Graphic Read More)

Source: National Post

Indonesia's most active volcano killed at least 65 people yesterday in its biggest eruption in more than a century, driving thousands more into emergency shelters, smothering homes and grounding flights.

The latest deaths bring the total toll to close to 110 since Mount Merapi started erupting on the island of Java last week, a day after a tsunami killed more than 400 people off Sumatra.

A plume of ash billowed four kilometres into the air, with debris falling over a vast area, including the Central Java provincial capital of Yogyakarta about 28 kilometres to the south.

Many of the dead were in Argomulyo, a village 18 km from the crater.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/after+volcano+erupts+Indonesia/3787229/story.html

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The data also indicates the hot ash cloud that hit a village near the crater was around 450-600 degrees Celsius (842-1,112 degrees Fahrenheit).
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/06/indonesia.volcano/?hpt=T1