'Like that movie 2012': Terrified crowds flee erupting volcano

[Turborama]

Source: MSNBC

'My parents have been calling ... saying 'You have to get out of there! You have to come home!''

msnbc.com news services
updated 2 hours 14 minutes ago

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia — Frightened residents in a bustling city of 400,000 at the foot of Indonesia's rumbling volcano headed out of town Monday, cramming onto trains and buses and even rented vehicles to seek refuge with family and friends far away.

Images of a mass burial for many of the 141 people killed in the last two weeks served as a reminder of the mountain's furry.

"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 in the university town of Yogyakarta, 20 miles from Mount Merapi. After failing to get tickets, they finally 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."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40063638/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

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(Lots of pictures at the bottom of the MSNBC page linked to above)

Merapi Ground Heat Forces Indonesia to Halt Search for Bodies

Source: The Jakarta Globe

Eko Listiyorini & Yoga Rusmana | November 08, 2010

Indonesian rescue workers were forced to abandon efforts to retrieve bodies of victims from the Nov. 5 eruption of Mount Merapi in central Java, as increasing ground temperature and volcanic instability made it unsafe to continue.

Rescuers had been using wooden boards to walk on in areas where the soil reached temperatures higher than 70 degrees Celsius, Oka Hamid, a spokesman at Red Cross Indonesia’s Yogyakarta branch, said today. “We found five bodies at Glagaharjo village, but only one was removed,” Hamid said by phone. “We are coming down now because the ground there is too hot and Merapi is unstable.”

Non-flammable boots and special gloves are needed to protect rescuers from hot burning soil, Hamid said. “We need at least 30 pair of gloves and boots,” he said. “Non-flammable boots are important in case we need to flee if anything bad happened.”

The death toll since the volcano began erupting Oct. 26 rose to 141 from 135 yesterday, with about 280,000 people seeking shelter in evacuation centers outside the 20-kilometer safety zone from Mount Merapi, the National Disaster Management Agency said in a statement on its Web site today.

Full article: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/merapi-ground-heat-forces-indonesia-to-halt-search-for-bodies/405523

A search and rescue team looks for victims at Wukirsari village in Sleman district in the
Indonesian Central Java province Sunday, Nov. 7

Related OP in GD: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9506514">Heads Up: Massive Volcanic Eruptions In Indonesia (Dialup Warning & Incl. Some Very Graphic Images)

[jaxx]

1. Are there problems with the other volcanoes too?

I read before that you are on another island and wonder at your safety too.
Take care!!

And thank you for the updates.

[jwirr]

2. When you look at a map of volcanoes in that area there are often

5-6 active volcanoes in a row. I am very worried that one will trigger the others.

[Turborama]

6. 19 volcanoes have been raised to the second highest danger level over the past few days

And I live at the base of one of those 19. I've done the math and if it blows and a 450 mph pyroclastic flow comes my way without warning I don't think I'd have enough time to get very far. That is the very worst case scenario, though.

Thank you for your best wishes! Much appreciated.

[Better Today]

3. "reminder of the mountain's furry." Perhaps a scratch behind it's furry ear

will calm it down. Once again, journalists with spell checker instead of actual proof readers.

On topic, most evacuations probably feel like the movie 2012 to those having to evacuate. But since they've had a few days now to know they needed to get away from an erupting volcano, I doubt any legitimacy to that comment. Seems it's not just in the USA that the most hysterical comments are the ones printed.

[Divine Discontent]

4. yep, FURRY!!!!!!

every single day I reed stories and role my eyes as I sea won story after another wear they prove that they don't have proofreaders anymore!

UGH, give us a job!

[Turborama]

5. You "doubt any legitimacy to that comment"?

Try going to the link below, look at the map & the selection of photos of what's been going on and then come back to me.

Here's a few hints, Yogyakarta is more than 20 kilometers away from Merapi (outside the "danger zone"), it is where the evacuees in the OP are running from, it is also the city where the evacuees from the sides of the volcano ran to.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9506514

"Seems it's not just in the USA that the most hysterical comments are the ones printed."

Really, if all you had to offer was to mock the author of the 1st article - from MSNBC, an American news corporation, BTW - and the people who are escaping possible death by volcano, why did you waste your time in this thread instead of just clicking on the hide button?

[antigone382]

7. Why don't you look at some photos of people and animals burned to death...

...before deciding what's hysterical. People process trauma however they can. They need compassion, not judgment.

[Posteritatis]

10. 'Cause people are always calm and rational about evacuation notices.

And they always have the means to get out in time.

[Warpy]

8. I've been watching the local papers there

and one image that haunts me is of a body that's largely intact but with everything below the knees blackened and the feet gone completely, burned off. People really do need to get out. I hope they make it.

Although vulcanologists have gotten far better at predicting when a volcano will erupt, they still can't predict how. Merapi shows all the signs of preparing to blow itself apart, if not now, then soon.

[Turborama]

9. Fears for missing children in volcano chaos

Posted 56 minutes ago

Rescuers in Indonesia have voiced fears for missing children lost in the chaos of a mass exodus, after a series of killer eruptions from the nation's most dangerous volcano.

About 300,000 people are living in cramped, temporary shelters, after being ordered to evacuate from a 20-kilometre danger zone around Mount Merapi, which has been spewing ash and heat clouds since late last month.

"We're concerned about children who are yet to be united with their parents," said Makbul Mubarak, a coordinator for volunteers who are trying to reunite separated families. He said Friday's powerful eruption, the biggest since the 1870s, had caused many residents to flee the area on the island of Java in panic, leaving at least 1,000 people desperately hunting for their loved ones.

A total of 151 people have died since Mount Merapi began erupting again on October 26, with bodies being pulled from the sludge that incinerated villages on Friday.

More: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/09/3061643.htm?section=world