Indonesia evacuates residents, shuts airport after Java volcano erupts

Indonesia evacuates residents, shuts airport after Java volcano erupts

JAKARTA - Indonesian authorities ordered people living near a volcano to leave their homes on Friday (May 11) and a major city closed its airport after the 5,500-metre peak sent a column of steam and ash into the sky.

The Mount Merapi volcano on densely populated Java island is one of the most active in Indonesia and a series of eruptions in 2010 killed more than 350 people.

A disaster mitigation agency told residents living within a 5km radius of the mountain to move to shelters, agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.

He said that 120 people who had been hiking up Merapi were safe.

Indonesian motorists commute along an ash-covered road after Mount Merapi eruptedPhoto: AFP

The airport in Yogyakarta, the nearest big city to the volcano, shut because of the threat from the ash, the state-owned aviation agency AirNav said in a statement.

The disaster agency described Merapi's latest eruption as phreatic, which means magma heats up groundwater and vapour is released under pressure.

The alert status on Merapi had not be raised, it said.

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