Airports Close, Thousands Flee As Bali"s Mt Agung Volcano Erupts

Bali’s Mount Agung has been trembling and spewing ash into the sky for months, warnings that prompted the government to steadily evacuate more than 75,000 people living around the base of the active volcano. Now the long-anticipated eruption is finally happening.

As the eruption began, Indonesia’s disaster management agency mandated an evacuation zone of 10 kilometers around the volcano and raised its alert status to 10, the highest level. More than 24,000 residents were evacuated over the past two days as the airport in Bali canceled flights as a thick cloud of ash shot 6,000 meters into the sky and drifted east and southeast of the archipelago. Lombok International Airport on Pulau Lombok, the island due east of Bali, has also closed.

According to CNN, residents were evacuated from 224 points around the island, said Ari Ahsan, spokesman for Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali.

The closures came as Indonesia upgraded its Volcano Observatory Notice for Aviation (VONA) to red, its highest warning, and said the ash-cloud top could reach 19,654 feet or higher.

The cancellations at Ngurah Rai, Bali"s main airport, stranded roughly 7,000 domestic and international passengers, according to the airport"s latest report.

Indonesia"s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation raised its aviation notice from an orange alert to a red one Sunday.

According to Reuters, ash covered roads, cars and buildings near the volcano, which is situated in the northeast of the island, while the red glow of what appeared to be magma could be seen in photographs taken by the state news agency.

“The activity of Mount Agung has entered the magmatic eruption phase. It is still spewing ash at the moment but we need to monitor and be cautious over the possibility of a strong, explosive eruption,” said Gede Suantika, an official at the volcanology and geological disaster mitigation agency.

At a height of just over 3,000 meters, Agung looms over eastern Bali. The most recent eruption, which happened in 1963, killed 1,000 people. The eruption surprised the local community, and some residents had only minutes to flee.

50,000 Evacuated From Bali As Nation Faces Imminent Volcanic Eruption

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Fears of an imminent eruption on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali have led to the evacuation of an estimated 50,000 people.  

The Mount Agung volcano is going to erupt, scientists say.

Waskita Sutadewa, the spokesman for the disaster mitigation agency in Bali, said people have scattered to all corners of the island and some have crossed to the neighboring island of Lombok.

Indonesian authorities raised the volcano’s alert status to the highest level on Friday following a dramatic increase in seismic activity. It last erupted in 1963, killing about 1,100 people.

Evacuation post #SiagaGunungAgung is in 9 distric; Karangasem, Buleleng, Klungkung, Bangli, Tabanan, Denpasar, Gianyar, Badung &Jembrana pic.twitter.com/Z49iOG0UCj

— Indonesian Red Cross (@palangmerah) September 25, 2017

Villagers are staying in temporary camps, sports centers, village halls, or with friends and relatives. Some do return to the exclusion zone during the day to tend to their livestock or shift the animals to areas further from the volcano for their safety. Others say they are selling their cows because they don’t know when they’ll be able to return.

“It’s obviously an awful thing. We want to be out of here just to be safe,” said an Australian woman at Bali’s airport who identified herself as Miriam. National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said hundreds of thousands of face masks will be distributed in Bali as part of government humanitarian assistance that includes thousands of mattresses and blankets. Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Government volcanologist Surono, who uses one name, said the feared eruption could be huge and potentially also close airports in East Java and Lombok, according to local media reports. Agung is in the north of the island about 43 miles from the tourist hotspot of Kuta. People have been told to stay at least 6 miles from the crater, but to stay 7.5 miles away when to the north, northeast, southeast, and south-southwest.

Over the past 5,000 years, Agung has erupted once a century on average and about a quarter of its eruptions have been a similar or stronger strength than 1963. Macquarie University volcanologist Heather Handley said the eruptions in 1843 and 1963 had a Volcanic Explosivity Index of about 5 on a scale where 8 would be the strength of an ancient supervolcano eruption such as Yellowstone in the U.S. or Toba in Indonesia.

Although officials have said there is no immediate threat to tourists, a significant eruption would force the closure of Bali’s international airport, stranding thousands. The island is famous for its surfing, beaches and its elegant Hindu culture is still safe to visit. Bali’s Ngurah rai International Airport has been operating normally since the alert status for Mount Agung was raised to the highest level on Friday.

Nearly 5 million tourists visited Bali last year.