Krakatau Volcano in Sunda Strait placed in "on-guard" status

Serang, Banten, Indonesia's (ANTARA News) - Kid of Krakatau volcano in the Sunda Strait has been placed in an "on-guard" status after having shown increased activity during the past three days, an observing officer said.

The volcano had produced 20 tremors and released 80-meter to 200-meter-long white-Grey smoke plumes every hour over the past three days (Oct 24-26), Sigin, an officer assigned to keep a watch, said on Friday.

In a normal state, the volcano produced only five tremors per hour but since last Wednesday the frequency of tremors had increased, he said. Consequently, tourists and fishermen had been warned not to come near the volcano.

But until Friday, the volcano had not sputtered nor emitted lava so that it was still not in a very critical condition.

In 2000, the volcano reached a higher level of activity marked by the emission of hot lava so that it was put in an alert status, Sigin said.

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

The Mountain Kelud in Indonesia

There is several news that saying prediction the kelud mountain of Indonesia will be explode that make a Hundreds of people have started to remove from the dangerous zone, in slope of Mount. Kelud in the densely populated area of East Java province as the volcano threatens to erupt, Health Ministry said.

The head of crisis center of the ministry Rustam Pakaya said that the evacuees were those in the category of high risk persons, such as pregnant women, babies, children, old persons and crippling people.

"Hundreds people have begun to be evacuated. We give priority to secure the high risk population,"Pakaya told Xinhua.

The head of the center said that the removal is due to a fear that the volcano may erupt.

The evacuees would be sheltered in a secure place in the radius of more than eleven kilometers from the mountain, he said.

"There is a possibility that the volcano can erupt,"he said.

Based on its short eruption cycle of once in 17 years, the volcano, which last erupt in 1990 and now in the second-highest alert status, was possible to explode this year, the head of surveillance of the country's Volcanology and Mitigation Center Yan Saut Simatupang has said.

The center has risen to the alert status of the mountain since the end of last month because of because of the increases of temperatures, the contents of carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfate (SO4) in the waters surface in the crater.

Besides, the rises of frequent of volcanic tremors, number of waters bubble emerging to the surface of the waters in the crater and the change of color of the waters.

The rise of the status was followed by the issuance of a warning avoid the territory in the radius of five kilometers, the center said.

Pakaya said that hundred thousands of masks had been distributed and air quality control was persistently carried out.

He said there is still thousands risk populations living near the mountain in the regencies of Kekdiri and Blitar.

Preparation on the medical treatment, including health facilities and medical personals, has been made in the two regencies, he said.

Over ten thousand people were killed when the mountain exploded in 1586. The mountain exploded

Then the mountain exploded in 1901, 1919, 1951, 1966 and 1990.

Mount. Kelud is parts of the country's 129 active volcanoes, which sixty-six of them are located in high-density population areas, Java and Sumatra islands, according to the meteorology agency.

Indonesia is laid at a vulnerable zone so called "The Pacific Ring of Fire" where two continental plates, stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia, meet that cause frequent volcanic movements.

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