Indonesia sends rescuers to evacuate tourists as volcano erupts
Authorities in Indonesia have sent rescuers to evacuate some 400 tourists presumed stranded as a volcano near the resort island of Bali starts erupting.
Mount Barujani, which is located on Lombok Island in east of Bali, began sending volcanic ash and smoke as high as two kilometers into the sky on Tuesday afternoon.
The Disaster Mitigation Agency dispatched rescuers on Wednesday morning to the areas where at least 400 tourists, most of them foreigners, are believed to have gone off piste on the mountain, according to the agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
Almost 1,100 other have already been evacuated.
“We are still searching for about 389 other tourists, mostly foreign tourists, to find out their condition and to evacuate them immediately,” Nugroho said.
He said hikers have been warned to stay at least three kilometers away from the volcano. The level of threat from the volcano remains two steps from the highest-risk category.
There have been no reports of injuries so far.
Some airliners in the area halted services due to volcanic ash cloud. They, however, said flights would be resumed on Wednesday.
Almost all of the night flights to and from Bali were cancelled overnight. The passengers would likely be unable to leave until Thursday or later.
Indonesia, which is located on a belt of seismic activity known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, is home to 130 active volcanoes. The islands are at frequent risk of earthquakes, tsunamis and active volcanoes, with Bali and Lombok being categorized as high-risk areas.
Last year, Mount Sinabung, on the country’s western Sumatra Island, erupted and forced over 10,000 villagers to flee their homes. Another huge eruption in the same mountain killed at least 16 people and damaged the region’s infrastructure, farming and tourism industry in 2014.
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