Aid workers brace for eruption
2007-10-19 12:06
Blitar, Indonesia - Scores of aid workers in Indonesia began mobilising on Friday ahead of a feared imminent eruption of a volcano on densely-populated Java island, the United Nations said.
Mount Kelut, a 1.731m peak about 90km from Indonesia's second largest city of Surabaya, was put on red alert on Tuesday amid fears it could be poised to blow.
Some 116 000 villagers were evacuated from the fertile plains around its slopes, but many have defied local officials' orders to stay away, instead returning home to tend their farms and protect them from possible looting.
The World Health Organisation has mobilised 100 medical professionals, placed 200 health facilities on alert and established 41 outreach health posts in anticipation of the eruption, the UN said in a statement.
Emergency health kits, masks and other essential equipment have also been prepared, it added.
Eruptions at the volcano have tended to consist of pyroclastic flows or "heat clouds" of hot air and volcanic debris that rush down the slopes and burn everything in their paths.
More than 15 000 lives have been claimed since record-keeping began of Mount Kelut's eruptions, including an estimated 10 000 in a catastrophic 1586 eruption.
A 1919 eruption spewed heat clouds that killed 5 160 people. The last eruption in 1990 left 34 people dead.