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Island focus: Bali remains safe as Mt. Agung re-erupts

Bali’s highest peak, Mount Agung, erupted again on Tuesday only days after authorities lowered the alert status following the decreasing seismic activity of the volcano

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Wed, February 14, 2018

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Island focus: Bali remains safe as Mt. Agung re-erupts

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ali’s highest peak, Mount Agung, erupted again on Tuesday only days after authorities lowered the alert status following the decreasing seismic activity of the volcano.

The monitoring post of The Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG) recorded that the eruption took place at 11:49 a.m. local time on Tuesday when the volcano spewed a column of ash 1.5 kilometers into the air.

The eruption occurred once and lasted for 140 seconds, according to a press statement by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB). Despite the eruption, the alert status remained at alert, the third level, with a 4-km exclusion zone declared around the crater. The authorities lowered the alert status from level four, the highest level, on Feb. 10.

“Bali remains safe. There has been no major impacts or flight disruptions from the eruption. The volcano still has the potential to erupt at any time, but not on a large scale,” BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in the statement on Tuesday.

Some 15,445 people remain in 146 shelters set up for evacuees. After the alert status was lowered, all evacuees were allowed to return to their villages. However, Sutopo said, there were still residents who had not returned because of damaged roads to their villages, damaged houses as well as a lack of money to start working their farmlands again.

All 132 residents of Bukit Galah village on the volcano’s slope remain in shelters as a bridge, the only means of reaching the village, is damaged.

Sutopo urged people to remain calm. The PVMBG had installed sophisticated equipment on Mount Agung that could provide information and act as an early warning system for the public, he added.

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