Indonesia | Evacuations from Bali volcano swell to about 50,000

Villagers rest at an evacuee camp in Rendang, Bali, yesterday

Nearly 50,000 people have fled the Mount Agung volcano on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, fearing an imminent eruption as dozens of tremors rattle the surrounding region, officials said yesterday.

Waskita Sutadewa, spokesman for the disaster mitigation agency in Bali, said people have scattered to all corners of the island and some have crossed to the neighboring island of Lombok.

Indonesian authorities raised the volcano’s alert status to the highest level on Friday following a dramatic increase in seismic activity. It last erupted in 1963, killing about 1,100 people.

Thousands of evacuees are living in temporary shelters, sports centers, village halls and with relatives or friends. Some return to the danger zone, which extends up to 12 kilometers from the crater, during the day to tend to livestock.

Officials have said there’s no immediate threat to tourists, but some are already cutting short their stays in Bali. A significant eruption would force the closure of Bali’s international airport, stranding thousands.

“It’s obviously an awful thing. We want to get out of here just to be safe,” said an Australian woman at Bali’s airport who identified herself as Miriam.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said hundreds of thousands of face masks will be distributed in Bali as part of government humanitarian assistance that includes thousands of mattresses and blankets.

“The chances of an eruption are very high, but we cannot be sure when it will erupt,” he said at a news conference in the capital, Jakarta.

He said not everyone had left the danger zone because they didn’t want to leave livestock, were underestimating the risk or because of religious reasons.

“Officers continue to sweep the area and are appealing for people to evacuate,” he said.

In 1963, the 3,031-meter Agung hurled ash as high as 20 kilometers, according to volcanologists, and remained active for about a year. Lava traveled 7.5 kilometers and ash reached Jakarta, about 1,000 kilometers away.

The mountain, 72 kilometers to the northeast of the tourist hotspot of Kuta, is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia.

The country of thousands of islands is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. Firdia Lisnawati, Bali, AP

Militant gets life in attack that killed child

An Indonesian court yesterday sentenced an Islamic State group sympathizer to life imprisonment for an attack on a church that killed a 2-year-old girl and injured three other children.

The attacker, Juhanda, who uses one name, was captured by locals after throwing a Molotov cocktail at Oikumene Church in Samarinda, the provincial capital of East Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo, in November last year.

Two-year-old Ade Intan Marbun died from her burns.

Juhanda was previously convicted in 2011 for terrorism offenses but released in July 2014.

Presiding Judge Surung Simanjuntak at the East Jakarta District Court said there was no reason for leniency because of the defendant’s lack of remorse and previous conviction.

“The defendant deliberately attacked the church, although he knew that there were many children in the churchyard,” he said.

In a separate trial, Simanjuntak also sentenced four co-conspirators — Supriyadi, Ahmad Dani, Rahmad and Joko Sugito — to prison terms ranging from six to seven years.

All of the five had pledged allegiance to Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and promised to carry out amaliyah, an Arabic term that is a byword for suicide bombing in militant circles, Simanjuntak said.