June 13, 2006

From today's NYT. There was mass evacuation this week, but everyone is moving back again. The villagers say any eruption is proceded by thunder and lightening.
Virginia
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/world/asia/12cnd-indo.html?_r=1&oref=login

Kinahrejo Journal

Sleepless Mystic is Early Alert for Villagers Near Volcano

By PETER GELLING
Published: June 12, 2006
KINAHREJO, Indonesia, June 12 — In this village, one of the closest to Mount Merapi's ominous crater, sleep is often tenuous.

Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times
Darto, an elder in the Indonesian village closest to Mount Merapi's ominous crater, is entrusted with the task of sounding the alarm.

Darto, 50, slept only a half hour on Sunday, spending all night sitting cross-legged beneath a small window, out of which the peak of Merapi, mired in smoke and gas, glowed orange between two tall trees.

Next to him, in a jumble, slept his wife and three daughters, wrapped in thick blankets, keeping warm in the cold mountain air.

In the distance, the volcano, considered one of the most unpredictable and dangerous in all of Indonesia, thundered. Wide trails of lava and volcanic rocks tumbled down its southern slopes, sometimes coming within half a mile of Mr. Darto's small, wood-framed house.

*snip*

No comments:

ShareThis