Mount Merapi, Indonesia – Villagers burned incense and floated offerings to the spirits, hoping to ward off an eruption of Mount Merapi, but activity at the volcano intensified today – with one blast sending ash, rock and gases more than 2 miles down the slope.
A scientist warned Sunday that a growing lava dome could collapse. Today, as activity increased, villagers who had not left were told to stand by for possible evacuation and waited in groups by the side of the road on the slopes of the volcano.
One of the eruptions was the most powerful yet, sending ash, rock fragments and volcanic gas almost 2 1/2 miles down the mountain’s western flank, said Ratdomopurbo, the region’s chief vulcanologist. Like many Indonesians, he uses only one name.
Despite a government evacuation order, many farmers had stayed to tend animals and crops on the volcano’s fertile slopes.
“I cannot force them,” said Widi Sutikno, the official coordinating the government’s emergency operation. “All I can do is tell them to keep looking up at the mountain and have a motorbike ready.”
More than 4,500 people living in villages closest to the crater or next to rivers that could provide paths for hot lava had been evacuated by Sunday.
In one of the villages in the shadow of Merapi, holy men and hundreds of people lit incense and set rice, fruit and vegetables floating down a river in a ceremony to appease the spirits and prevent an eruption.
“It’s bound to help,” said Parsi, a villager. “Everyone around here believes in this. It is in our blood.”
Scientists feared that an eruption could be imminent for the 9,800-foot Merapi, about 250 miles east of the capital, Jakarta.
Sugiono, a scientist monitoring the volcano, said a dome of lava being formed by magma forced to the surface was poised to collapse and could send searing clouds down the mountain at several hundred miles an hour.
“Hot clouds keep appearing all the time,” Sugiono said. “If you get stuck in them, then you have no chance.”
