MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia — Searing gas and molten lava poured from Indonesia’s deadly volcano in an explosion three times as powerful as last week’s devastating blast, chasing people from villages and emergency shelters along its slopes.
After more than a week of continual eruptions — and warnings that pressure inside Mount Merapi might still be building — the province warned Wednesday it was running out of money to help more than 70,000 people forced from their homes.
Soldiers loaded women and crying children into trucks while rocks and debris rained from the sky.
No new casualties were reported after Wednesday’s fiery explosion — which was followed just before dawn today by another booming tremor and ash cloud.
“This is an extraordinary eruption,” said Surono, a state volcanologist who had earlier said energy building up behind a magma dome in the crater appeared to be easing. Like many Indonesians, he goes by only one name.
Surono said the blast, which dusted cars, trees and roads in towns up to 80 miles away in gray ash, had triple the force of the first eruption Oct. 26.
“We have no idea what’s happening,” he said, as he watched the bobbing needle of a seismograph machine. “It looks like we may be entering an even worse stage now.”
Mount Merapi, which means “Fire Mountain,” has erupted many times in the past century, often with deadly results. Thirty-eight people have died since it burst back to life just over a week ago. In 1994, 60 people were killed, while in 1930, more than a dozen villages were torched, leaving up to 1,300 dead.
Still, as with other volcanoes in this seismically charged country, tens of thousands call its fertile slopes home. Most now are packed in crowded government camps well away from the base.
Djarot Nugroho, the head of Central Java’s disaster-management agency, said money to buy instant noodles, clean water, medicine and other supplies would run out within five days unless the Indonesian government declares a national disaster, bringing in much-needed federal funds.
