Indonesia Volcano Burns Whole Villages; 122 Dead

MOUNT MERAPI, KOMPAS.com — A surge of searing gas raced down the sides of Mount Merapi on Friday, smothering entire villages as it killed or seriously burned those caught in its path. The death toll after the volcano’s largest eruption in a century soared to 122.

The worst hit village of Bronggang lay nine miles (15 kilometers) from the fiery crater, just on the perimeter of the government-delineated “danger zone.” Crumpled roofs, charred carcasses of cattle and broken chairs — all layered in white ash and soot — dotted the smoldering landscape. The zone has since been expanded to a ring 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the peak, bringing it to the edge of the ancient royal capital of Yogyakarta, which has been put on its highest alert.

Sri Sucirathasri said her family had stayed in their Bronggang home Thursday night because they hadn’t been told to leave.  They awoke in the dark as the mountain let out thunderous claps and tried desperately to outrun the flows, which reached speeds of 60 mph (100 kph), on a motorbike.

Her mother, father and 12-year-old sister, Prisca, left first, but with gray ash blocking out any light, they mistakenly drove into — rather than away from — the volcano’s dangerous discharge. The 18-year-old Sri went looking for them when she heard her mother’s screams, leaving at home an older sister, who died when the house became engulfed in flames.

“It was a safe place. There were no signs to evacuate,” said Sri, a vacant gaze fixed on Prisca, whose neck and face are burned a shiny ebony, her features nearly melted away. Their mother is still missing. Their father, whose feet and ankles are burned, is being treated in another ward.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispers when asked if she blames officials for not warning the family. “Angry at who? I’m just sad. And very sick.”

Merapi’s latest round of eruptions began Oct. 26, followed by more than a dozen other powerful blasts and thousands of tremors.  With each new eruption, scientists and officials have steadily pushed the villagers who live along Merapi’s fertile slopes farther from the crater.

But after initially predicting earlier eruptions would ease pressure under the magma dome, experts who have spent a lifetime studying the volcano now say the don’t know what to expect. Scientists can study the patterns of volcanoes, but their eruptions are essentially unpredictable, as Merapi’s  increasingly intense blasts have proved.

On Friday, the towering plumes of ash rained dust on windshields of cars 300 miles (480 kilometers) away, although a rain near the mountain in the afternoon turned much of it to sludge. Bursts of hot clouds occasionally interrupted aid efforts, with rescuers screaming, “Watch out! Hot cloud!”

The eruption released 1,765 million cubic feet (50 million cubic meters) of volcanic material, making it “the biggest in at least a century,” said state volcanologist Gede Swantika as plumes of smoke continued to shoot up more than 30,000 feet (10,000 meters).