Indonesia: 25,000 evacuated – tourism in Sumatra stopped

Mount Sinabung on the western island of Sumatra sent hot rocks and ash up to 5,000 metres in the air “several times” on Saturday, National Disaster Mitigation Agency emergency response director Tri Budiarto said.

The ongoing volcanic eruptions from Mount Sinabung in Karo regency, North Sumatra, have not only greatly affected agriculture in the area but also has brought down a vibrant travel and tourism industry on this Indonesian Island.

The number of foreign and domestic tourist arrivals in the regency has reportedly fallen drastically since the start of Mt. Sinabung’s eruptions in September.

So far more than 25,000 people have fled their homes following a series of eruptions and lava flows from a volcano in Indonesia, an official said on Sunday.

The official count is: 25,516 people have been evacuated. There’s nobody now within a five-kilometre radius of the crater. Authorities are urging those living within seven kilometres southeast of the crater to evacuate at this time.

Mount Sinabung is a Pleistocene-to-Holocene stratovolcano of andesite and dacite in the Karo plateau of Karo Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia, 25 miles from Lake Toba supervolcano. Many old lava flows are on its flanks and the last known eruption, before recent times, occurred in the year 1600.[citation needed] Solfataric activities (cracks where steam, gas, and lava are emitted) were last observed at the summit in 1912, other documented events include an eruption in the early hours of 29 August 2010 and eruptions in September and November 2013 and January 2014.

Hot lava, which has been spewing from the volcano for the past two weeks, has flowed into a river and filled up valleys with pyroclastic material, he said.