{"id":15707,"date":"2022-12-05T13:30:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T05:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=15707"},"modified":"2022-12-05T13:30:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T05:30:12","slug":"thousands-on-alert-in-indonesias-java-after-mt-semeru-eruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=15707","title":{"rendered":"Thousands on alert in Indonesia’s Java after Mt. Semeru eruption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JAKARTA, Dec 5<\/strong> – Thousands of residents in Indonesia’s East Java were on high alert on Monday after a violent eruption at the island’s tallest volcano prompted authorities to impose an 8-kilometer no-go zone and forced evacuations of entire villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The provincial search and rescue agency deployed teams to the worst-affected areas near Mount Semeru to assess damage, with low rainfall giving some reprieve, Tholib Vatelehan, a Basarnas spokesperson, told Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yesterday, the rainfall level was high, causing all the material from the top of the mountain to come down. But today, so far, there’s no rain, so its relatively safe,”<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"eruption\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

No casualties have been reported and there has not been any immediate disruption to air travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 3,676-metre volcano erupted at 2.46pm local time on Sunday (0746GMT). Footage shot by local residents showed Mt. Semeru spewing a giant cloud of grey ash high above its crater, which later engulfed the mountain and surrounding rice paddy fields, roads and bridges, and turned the sky black. A video shared by the Environment Ministry on Twitter showed a pyroclastic flow of lava, rocks and hot gases gushing down the mountainside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People fled the eruption on motorcycles, with almost 2,500 people forced to evacuate, authorities said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indonesia’s volcanology and geological hazard mitigation agency on Sunday raised the alert level for Mt. Semeru to the highest level. The agency also issued a warning to residents not to approach within 8 km (5 miles) of the summit, or 500 metres of riversides due to risks of lava flows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Semeru erupted last year killing more than 50 people and displacing thousands more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eruption, some 640 km (400 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta, follows a series of earthquakes in the west of Java, including one last month that killed more than 300 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An archipelago of 270 million that sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 142 volcanoes, Indonesia has the largest population globally living in close range to a volcano, including 8.6 million within 10km (6.2 miles).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMT<\/a> as reported by Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JAKARTA, Dec 5 – Thousands of residents in Indonesia’s East Java were on high alert…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,10891],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-environment"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ.jpg",1200,900,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ-768x576.jpg",640,480,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ-1024x768.jpg",640,480,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ.jpg",1200,900,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ.jpg",1200,900,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ.jpg",1127,845,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ.jpg",1024,768,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/TMGWSMCPLBJOXCVLKBQWFZQ6IQ.jpg",633,475,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Asia<\/a> Environment<\/a>","tag_info":"Environment","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15709,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15707\/revisions\/15709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}