Mount Kelud keeps villagers on high alert

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Authorities in Indonesia's densely populated East
Java province warned residents living on the slopes of Mount Kelud to stay at temporary shelters as the volcano's risk of a major eruption remained high, officials said Wednesday.

volcano logists placed the 1,731-meter volcano on top alert on October 16 and evacuated thousands of people living within 10 kilometers from the crater to makeshift shelters.

However, around 3,000 of more than 5,000 evacuees have returned to their homes on the slopes of the volcano, claiming it wasn't convenient to stay away for two weeks and defying warnings from local officials and scientists that the risk of a major eruption remains high.

"Mount Kelud's risk of eruption remains high, so we warned the evacuees to continue staying at the temporary shelters," Umar Rosadi, head of the emergency response team from nearby Kediri district, told DPA.

Kediri is located about 600 kilometers south-east of Jakarta.

Experts from the nearby monitoring post said that water in the volcano's 15-meter deep crater reached 39.5 degrees Celsius in the first six hours of Wednesday, up from 39.2 degrees Celsius three days earlier. Water temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius before Mount Kelud's most recent eruption in 1990.

Volcanologists explained that the crater's temperature was among indicators used to predict an eruption and that others, such as volcanic tremors and deformation of the volcano, were also increasing.

Mount Kelud, 100 kilometers south of Surabaya, the second biggest city in Indonesia, has a history of deadly eruptions. In 1990 dozens of people were killed.

Meanwhile, the offspring of Krakatoa volcano in the Straits of Sunda - between Indonesia's Java and Sumatra islands - continue spewing ash and hot materials to nearby areas, leading government authorities to maintain its alert status at Level 3, and a 3-kilometer off-limit zone for visitors and fishermen.

Indonesia has the world's highest density of volcanoes, with 500 located in the so-called "Ring of Fire," in the 5,000-kilometer-wide archipelago nation. Of these, 128 are active