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Mt. Kelud evacuees say no to relocation

School’s out: Villagers affected by last week’s eruption of Mount Kelud remain at a shelter in Malang regency, East Java, on Tuesday

Indra Harsaputra and Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post)
Malang, East Java/Bandung
Wed, February 19, 2014

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Mt. Kelud evacuees say no to relocation School’s out: Villagers affected by last week’s eruption of Mount Kelud remain at a shelter in Malang regency, East Java, on Tuesday. Children could not go to school because their school buildings have been severely damaged. (JP/Indra Harsaputra) (JP/Indra Harsaputra)

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span class="inline inline-none">School'€™s out: Villagers affected by last week'€™s eruption of Mount Kelud remain at a shelter in Malang regency, East Java, on Tuesday. Children could not go to school because their school buildings have been severely damaged. (JP/Indra Harsaputra)

Despite being residents of a disaster-prone area, evacuees from Thursday'€™s Mount Kelud eruption in East Java have refused the idea of relocating from their home villages.

Parti, a resident of Pandansari, Ngantang district, Malang regency '€” the worst-hit area '€” for example, insisted she would not move from her village if the government proposed relocation for local residents.

'€œNo matter what, this is my land and my village. I will not move anywhere,'€ Parti said on Tuesday.

When the volcano erupted on Thursday, spewing volcanic ash and sand, Parti and her 20-year-old daughter Wijiasih '€” a victim of polio '€” could not run away because Parti found it too heavy to carry her daughter. They survived after Parti took Wijiasih on a motorbike when the sand and ash shower subsided.

The eruption damaged 90 percent of the homes belonging to Pandansari'€™s 1,243 residents and destroyed a school building.

However, despite President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono'€™s call for residents to avoid returning to their villages until Mt. Kelud'€™s status returned to normal, evacuees have been returning home since Friday.

The President visited the evacuees in Kediri on Monday and Tuesday, accompanied by First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, Coordinating People'€™s Welfare Minister Agung Laksono, Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh, Youth and Sports Minister Roy Suryo and State Secretary Sudi Silalahi.

Just a few hours after the President'€™s entourage left the evacuation center, hundreds of evacuees from Sempu, Kediri regency, chose to return to their villages located 10 kilometers from Mt. Kelud.

Sociologist Bagong Suyanto of Surabaya Airlangga University said that the evacuees wanted to continue living in their disaster-prone villages because they considered eruptions a blessing and not a disaster.

'€œThey consider living outside their village as much more dangerous. They are afraid to live in cities and to cross roads with busy traffic,'€ Bagong said.

As of Tuesday, Mt. Kelud was still at top alert status although its volcanic activities had abated.

I Gede Suantika of the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG) said from Bandung, West Java, that caution was needed in the post-eruption period as millions of cubic meters of volcanic materials covering the areas within a radius of 5 kilometers from Mt. Kelud could at any time turn into a lahar flood, due to heavy downpours over the volcano.

In a related development, as of Tuesday both Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta and Adi Sumarmo International Airport in the Central Java municipality of Surakarta were still closed for flights due to thick layers of volcanic ash from the eruption.

Adisucipto airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I general manager Andi G. Wirson said that the airport would only be ready for operation on Wednesday. Adi Sumarmo, on the other hand, would be open for flights on Thursday, according to head of the Region III Authority in Surabaya, East Java, which oversees 22 airports including Adi Sumarmo and Adisucipto.

Bambang Muryanto and Kusumasari Ayuningtyas contributed to this article from Yogyakarta and Surakarta.

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