JAKARTA – Indonesia Disaster Management Agency, said on Tuesday that thousands of villagers were evacuated following Sunday’s eruption of Mount Sinabung in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province.
The agency’s chief, Subur Tambun, said more than 7,000 people have been evacuated from seven villages where the volcano occurred to 15 shelters.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
He said the local government had set up 11 new shelters to accommodate the new evacuees, in addition to the four existing shelters where the first evacuees had been relocated.
Tambun said the first wave of 3,066 villagers included 80 babies and 133 children who left their homes since last week.
Sutopo Purwo-Nugroho, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman, said the volcano erupted six times on Saturday, throwing ash up to 2 kilometres into the air.
“We still have to evacuate people from six more villages while the volcano continues to gush hot clouds blowing south and south-east.
He said Mount Sinabung has erupted intermittently since late 2013.
Purwo-Nugroho said 16 people were killed and tens of thousands were temporarily displaced during an intense period of eruptions early in 2014.
“We can’t really predict when the eruption will stop. Relocation is proving difficult due to limited plots of land available to build shelters and their supporting infrastructure,” he said. (dpa/NAN)
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