How the Mount Ruang volcano has suddenly become a major threat to its surroundings | DW News

to Indonesia now the country has declared its highest level of alert after a volcano erupted several times authorities are racing to evacuate thousands of residents in the area and have issued a tsunami warning spreading Ash and hot volcanic clouds also closed a nearby airport the sky glows from fiery lava and flashes of lightning after a volcano in Northern Indonesia erupts again and again eyewitnesses captured these scenes from a nearby Island the eruption of Mount rang has forced the evacuation of thousands of people from their homes last night groups of local people were evacuating themselves after they saw a small Rocks coming down from the eruption people were in a panic and they fled so our job is to make sure that there is no one left stranded along the coastline rang is a remote Island located in North suaves province of Indonesia the eruptions were said to be triggered by recent earthquakes on the island authorities have warned that part of the volcano could collapse into the sea and cause a tsunami Indonesia sprawls along the age of the Pacific Ring of Fire where multiple tectonic plates grind against each other for the archipelago's residents it means living with the constant threat of Nature's violence let's bring in DW correspondent Sharon sumang who joins us from Indonesia's Capital Jakarta Sharon authorities have issued a tsunami warning what more do we know about the current Threat Level yes Nicole so until now until Thursday afternoon monitoring is still spitting cloud of smokes and it has been multiple times of eruption happening since the first one on Tuesday and the officials yesterday have uh raised the volcano warning to the highest level which is level four because of the high volcanic activity in the area and not only that the officials have also raised or issued the Tsunami alert um because of if we're seeing at the history of Mount Drang eruption that happened in 187 one which killed 400 people the tsunami wave was reaching at 25 M high if we compare that with what happened in AE during tsunami in 2004 the wave was reaching at 30 m so looking at that history of Mount Wang eruption the official authorities of what we call here bmkg um they have been uh focusing on the monitoring of the sea level until now okay so they're closely monitoring the situation but what are authorities doing to get to civilians out of Harm's Way in the face of a possible worst case scenario yeah so um residents who live within 6 kilometers radius uh from the volcano have been told to evacuate and until now the process of evacuation is still ongoing with uh at least 800 people have been evacuated either uh independently or being helped by the search and rescue team to uh take shelters in churches or community centers but um officials said that there are more than 11,000 residents that needs to evacuate in order to avoid um the impact of the eruption and not only that uh the local authorities have also been Distributing Aid such as blankets masks and instant food for the victim to the area but it has to be carried out in stages due to its limited transport option which is uh by boat MH now Indonesia of course lies in an area where eruption and earthquakes are quite common how are locals adapting to this ever looming danger of a natural disaster yeah so Indonesia sits at the ring of fire we have more than 100 volcanoes in our country and as Indonesian myself to experience disaster like that such as earthquake is not something new for us um but uh what needs to be um put more efforts on is to increase the awareness and the understanding of disaster management um Disaster Response uh from the government so uh living in a huge archipelago with 260 million people the government really needs to put extra efforts reaching remote areas uh all those people that lives in villages to be able to know uh how to mitigate when um disaster something like that happen maybe um also strengthening collaboration with um schools through policies and other uh uh agencies so that uh people could know what to do when this happens that was DW correspondent Sharon suong thank you so much for that update

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Length: 5min 12sec (312 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024