Indonesia on Tuesday downgraded its top alert on Mount Merapi volcano as scientists said they no longer believe an eruption is imminent.
Merapi — whose name means “Mountain of Fire” — was put on red alert on May 13 and its activity has fluctuated since then. It has declined substantially since Friday when part of a lava dome forming at its peak collapsed.
“The activity status of Merapi is downgraded from ‘beware’ to ‘standby’ as of June 13 2006 at 11am,” said Yousana Siagian, head of the vulcanology office in West Java’s Bandung, in a statement.
“With a depression in the lava dome … the risk has become small that a large-scale cloud will be emitted,” the office said, referring to the searing clouds that are typical of a Merapi eruption.
Those clouds that have been emitted from Merapi’s peak, as well as its blazing lava flows, had decreased in number and in the distance they travel since the volcano’s last major belching of clouds Friday, the office said.
In the first six hours of Tuesday the volcano released only one observable cloud that reached 1,5km plus 60 lava torrents. The longest of these travelled 3km.
On Friday the clouds, which burn everything in their path, reached 5km down the slope of the volcano, the farthest distance reached during the heightened alert. They did not reach inhabited areas.
The partial collapse of the dome caused Merapi to lose around one third of the lava and volcanic material accumulated at its peak and has made the structure more stable, scientists have said.
The vulcanology office recommended that the districts surrounding Merapi send home about 15 000 people evacuated from the danger zone, who were still sheltering in makeshift camps as of early Tuesday.
Merapi’s activity had settled slightly after the initial alert. But it escalated following a strong earthquake on May 27 that killed about 5 800 people in and around Yogyakarta in the same region. — AFP