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Indonesia tsunami: fresh alert for Anak Krakatau volcano as eruptions continue Indonesia tsunami: fresh alert for Anak Krakatau volcano as eruptions continue
(about 4 hours later)
Indonesia has raised the danger alert level for the volcano that sparked the devastating Sunda Strait tsunami, adding to a previous warning that fresh activity at the crater threatened to trigger another deadly wave. Indonesia has raised the danger level for a volcano that triggered a tsunami over the weekend, which killed at least 430 people in Sumatra and Java, and widened its no-go zone.
Authorities also widened a no-go zone around Anak Krakatau to 5km (three miles) – up from a previous 2km – and warned shell-shocked residents to stay away from the coast, after more than 400 were killed by Saturday night’s killer wave. The country’s volcanology agency said on Thursday the Anak Krakatau volcano’s alert status had been raised to the second-highest level and the exclusion zone more than doubled to a three-mile radius.
The eruption on Saturday night caused part of the island volcano in the Sunda Strait to collapse into the sea, which in turn is believed to have generated tsunami waves of more than 2 metres (6.5 feet). Most tsunamis are caused by earthquakes.
Indonesia tsunami: coastline still under threat amid fresh volcanic activity
The government has warned Sunda Strait communities to stay at least a kilometre away from the coastline because of the risk of another tsunami triggered by Krakatau’s ongoing eruptions.
“There’s still a chance of a landslide, even under the sea level or on the sea level,” said Rudy Sunendar, the head of the energy ministry’s geology department. “We don’t know exactly because we are not yet gone to the field” due to bad weather, he said at the volcano’s monitoring post. “Based on the satellite imagery interpretation, there is collapse of some area of Mount Anak Krakatau.”
Saturday’s disaster struck without warning in a country that regularly experiences landslides, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. No earthquake activity had been felt beforehand, and the waves surged inland at night on a holiday weekend while many people were enjoying concerts and other beach and resort activities.
Indonesia’s tsunami warning system relies on land seismometers and buoys connected to tidal gauges and is not equipped to detect underwater landslides. The system, in any case, has not operated for years because the buoys have been vandalised or not maintained because of low funding.
Heavy rains and high seas have hampered the search for victims. Some bodies were found at sea and at least 159 people are missing.
On Thursday, residents of badly-affected Banten province in Java were searching the debris of destroyed or damaged homes for anything salvageable. “I’ve lost everything I have, my house and all belongings inside it,” said a local farmer, Muhamad Sarta.
“I just hope for some help from the government. Hopefully there will be some repairs. I have nowhere to go. I have no money. Whatever I had was lost in the water.”
Radar data from satellites, converted into images, shows the Anak Krakatau volcano shrank dramatically following Saturday’s eruption.
Satellite photos were not available because of cloud cover but radar images from a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency satellite, taken before and after the eruption, show much of the volcano’s south-western flank had gone.
JAXA’s post-eruption image shows concentric waves radiating from the island, which experts say is caused by ongoing eruptions.
Dave Petley, the head of research and innovation at Sheffield University, who analysed similar images from a European Space Agency satellite, said they support the theory that a landslide, most of it undersea, caused the tsunami.
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Plumes of ash burst into the sky as pyroclastic flows – hot gas and other volcanic material – flowed down the crater, raising the risk of rough seas for boats in the vicinity. “The challenge now is to interpret what might be happening on the volcano, and what might happen next,” he wrote in a blog.
“There is a danger of more eruptions,” said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. “People [near the volcano] could be hit by hot rocks, pyroclastic flows and thick ash.” Anak Krakatau, which means child of Krakatau, is the offspring of the infamous Krakatau volcano that affected the global climate with a massive eruption in 1883. It rose above sea level in 1929, according to Indonesia’s volcanology agency, and has been increasing its land mass since then.
Authorities raised the crater’s status to high alert, the second-highest danger warning, while aviation officials ordered flights to be redirected away from the area.
“We’ve raised the status of [the volcano] since this morning because there’s been a change in the eruption pattern,” Kus Hendratno, a senior official at the Krakatau observatory, told AFP.
The new flows posed no immediate danger to towns as the volcano sits in the middle of the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands.
But the status change sparked new fears with many local residents already scared and refusing to return to their homes over fears of another tsunami.
“This worries me,” said Ugi Sugiarti, a cook at the Augusta hotel in Carita. “I’ve already left.”
Sukma, a security guard at the shattered Mutiara Carita Cottages, added: “Just please pray for us and that everything will be okay.”
A section of the crater – which formed out of a massive eruption in 1883 which killed at least 36,000 people – collapsed after an eruption and slid into the ocean, triggering Saturday night’s tsunami.
At least 430 people have been killed, with 1,495 people injured and another 159 still missing.
Nearly 22,000 people have been evacuated and are living in shelters.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago, is one of the most disaster-hit nations on Earth due to its position straddling the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide.
Indonesia tsunamiIndonesia tsunami
IndonesiaIndonesia
Natural disasters and extreme weatherNatural disasters and extreme weather
VolcanoesVolcanoes
Asia Pacific
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