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Kids traumatized by Sinabung eruptions
Clean up: Students at a state elementary school in Beganding village in North Sumatra’s Karo regency clean up their classrooms from ash covering the facility on Tuesday, after nearby Mt
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span class="caption">Clean up: Students at a state elementary school in Beganding village in North Sumatra’s Karo regency clean up their classrooms from ash covering the facility on Tuesday, after nearby Mt. Sinabung erupted the day before.(JP/Nurni Sulaiman)
Jevayona Siska could not hide the trauma she suffered from witnessing the eruption of Mt. Sinabung when she shared her experiences with a trauma healing team from the Karo Education Agency.
In the middle of her testimony, the fifth grader of 046417 state elementary school suddenly fell silent and cried. She could not continue recounting her experience of the strong earthquake that happened before the volcano’s latest major eruption on Monday.
“We were scared. The earthquake was strong. Thick volcanic ash covered our school,” Siska said on Wednesday after the trauma healing event at her school in Naman village, Namanteran district, Karo regency.
Nikolas Tarigan, a third grader at the elementary school, said he also felt afraid when he saw the eruption of Mt. Sinabung. Nikolas said the event was really traumatic for him. “I was really scared,” he said.
On Wednesday, more than 100 students and several teachers attended the trauma healing event. Leaving their classrooms one by one, the students gathered and formed a long line in the middle of the school yard. The trauma healing team led by Karo Education Agency head Eddi Surianta Surbakti later asked the students to sing together.
Having undergone trauma healing training after a major earthquake hit Padang, West Sumatra, in 2007, Eddi, supported by his team, worked to heal the children’s trauma with fun and playful games. After letting the students first have fun with singing and playing games, Eddi spent around one-and-a-half hours motivating the students and their teachers to be braver in facing natural disasters. He taught them how to prepare for an eruption with several safety tips.
According to the Karo Education Agency, the trauma healing activities would be carried out over two days in several elementary schools heavily affected by Sinabung eruptions.
Eddi said one of the schools prioritized to receive the trauma healing program was 046417 elementary school.
Video footage circulating on social media and on TV, shows dozens of students running away in fear from classrooms in their school in Naman village, Karo, when Mt. Sinabung, which is located only several kilometers away from their school, erupted yet again on Monday.
The students screamed in terror while some others cried, calling out for their mothers. In the video footage, volcanic ash was seen blowing as high as 5,000 meters into the air from the volcano’s crater.
Pyroclastic flows released from Sinabung in Monday’s eruption reportedly reached as far as 4.9 kilometers south of the volcano, blanketing five districts with volcanic ash and destroying hundreds of hectares of crop plants of local farmers.
Eddi said the school, which was located in the danger zone, was the closest to Mt. Sinabung. That was why many children and teachers suffered severe trauma from the eruption. During the trauma healing activities, many of the participants cried each time they recalled volcanic eruptions that had threatened their
school.
“Some students still do not dare go to school as they are still afraid to see the volcano. What a really traumatic event the eruption was,” said Eddi.
Despite the traumatic event, Eddi said his agency had decided not to suspend school activities as the Sinabung monitoring station had declared the situation to be safe.
Sinabung monitoring station head Armen Putera said there was a potential for the volcano to erupt again. “There is still a large volume of lava stored in the crater of Sinabung, as much as around 1.6 million cubic meters,” he said, adding that people must stay alert because the volcano was still highly active.
Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center (PVMBG) head Kasbani said the agency had not lowered Sinabung’s alert status from the highest level because its volcanic activity was still high.
“Most of the volcanic material was blown out during Monday’s eruption, so the risk for hot clouds is currently low. It is safer now. Eruptions will keep happening in the future. Maybe in the next two or three months new lava domes will form,” said Kasbani.
