More than 1,000 villagers evacuated from slopes of Mount Awu

Jongker Rumthe, Manado

The Sangihe regental administration in North Sulawesi evacuated on Monday more than 1,000 residents from the slopes of Mount Awu to safer areas after the volcano continued to show signs of activity.

The condition of the volcano had been declared normal for the past three weeks, but from Saturday the mountain was seen spewing fire and discharging thick smoke.

Due to an increase in volcanic activities, the volcanology office in Tahuna, the main town in Sangihe island, raised the status on the mountain to "beware", the highest alert level, for local villagers.

"The seismograph indicates a significant increase in activity -- above normal -- including signs of eruption," Tahuna volcanology office head Endy Bina told The Jakarta Post from Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi.

He said that, based on what had been detected, the office immediately coordinated with several command posts to warn residents, especially those living in danger-prone locations, to evacuate.

Tahuna district chief Jopi Kakondo said all residents were alerted to vacate danger areas. The evacuation continued on Monday from 11 a.m., he added.

Sangihe Regent Winsulangi Salindeho said he had deployed hundreds of land transportation vehicles to evacuate the villagers, who were alerted via radio announcements.

He said that since Saturday, the residents living in several danger areas like Kolongan, Manente and Kendahe districts, as well as some parts of North Tabukan district, panicked while fleeing to safer areas.

The refugees were sheltered in government buildings and several schools in Tahuna.

Several residents said that an indication was the number of wild animals, like wild boars and various snakes, that had fled.

They started to descend the mountain in search of cooler places as the earth around them was heating up, they added.

"These are signs that Mount Awu is about to erupt. Based on what happened during previous eruptions, many different animals descended from the mountain to residential areas on the slopes of the volcano," Kolongan villager Romel Hanibe said.

In the second week of May, hundreds of villagers also fled their homes as the 1,320-meter-high volcano continued to belch out ash and smoke.

Mount Awu is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia. It erupted in 1640, 1641 and 1977, with no recorded casualties.

The volcano also erupted in 1711, leaving some 3,000 people dead and hundreds of houses and hectares of farmland destroyed. Another eruption in 1812 left at least 2,806 people dead.

Awu erupted again in 1856, claiming more than 2,000 lives. The last fatal eruption was recorded in 1966, when at least 39 people were killed.

The Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Rim of Fire, noted for its volcanic and seismic activity.