More than 500 evacuated as Indonesian volcano spews lava
Pastor Dale Morgan
More than 500 evacuated as Indonesian volcano spews lava*
JAKARTA, Aug 12 (AFP) Aug 12, 2007
More than 500 people have been evacuated from the slopes of Mount
Karangetang which has been spewing lava and hot clouds on the northern
Indonesian island of Siau, a report said Sunday.
The conditions have forced authorities to raise the area's alert status
by one rung, with a total of 151 families or 564 people being evacuated
from three villages on the slopes of the 1,784-metre (5,958-foot)
Karangetang volcano.
Lava and hot clouds emerged from the peak of the mountain on Friday, the
Indopos newspaper quoted the Sitaro district chief, Idrus Mokodompit as
saying.
Officials of the vulcanology office could not be immediately reached by
telephone on Sunday but the office's website said that the alert status
on Mount Karangetang had been raised to one rung below the top level as
of 0730 GMT on Friday.
People living in the immediate danger zone on the higher slopes of Mount
Karangetang have been evacuated to safer villages on the island,
Mokodompit said.
Hotclouds -- clouds of high temperatures that slide down the slope at
high speed burning everything in their path -- from the volcano killed
three when it last erupted in 1997. Five years earlier, hotclouds left
seven people dead.
Mount Karangetang's last large eruption in 1974 forced the total
evacuation of its population to a nearby island.