Mon, 04 Dec 2000

Mt. Bromo volcano begins to spew ash

JAKARTA (JP): The 2,392-meter Mt. Bromo volcano in East Java has been closed to tourists as ash was constantly spewing from its crater, officials said on Sunday.

Widely known as a scenic tourist attraction, the mountain began to spew ash on Wednesday, with the wind now carrying it as far as the neighboring towns of Probolinggo, Pasuruan, Malang, Sidoarjo and parts of the East Java capital of Surabaya.

"The mixture of rain and ash have left the roads to Bromo very muddy and slippery. To prevent possible accidents, the area is being temporarily closed for tourism-related activities," said First Sgt. Teguh Sudarwadi of the Sukapura Police subprecinct, the closest police station to the volcano which is some 18 kilometers away.

"The ash has been causing us eye and nose irritations, but so far local residents have been able to go about their normal business," the officer told The Jakarta Post by phone.

He said the ash blanketed the ground to a depth of two centimeters every morning.

"We are collaborating with the local government just in case the situation gets worse," Teguh said.

The spewing ash has also forced farmers living at the foot of Mr. Bromo to harvest hundreds of hectares of fruit and crops early.

"We're hoping to save the crops and, fortunately, the amount of ash falling has lessened recently," Karmidi, a local from Ngadisari village told the Post by phone.

"We have no other choice but to harvest our cabbage and apple crops early as the ash has covered them, otherwise we would suffer greater losses," a Sukapura farmer, Hartono, told Antara.

Bromo, located on a sand plateau of the Tengger mountain range and part of the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park, has been off- limits to tourists since Wednesday.

"There has been no decision made as yet to step up the alert status (of the volcano) to a red alert," Sarmin, an official from the national park, said as quoted by Antara.

Bromo last spewed ash on March 3, 1995.

The news agency also quoted a Tengger shaman Soedja'i as saying that the residents were still staying in their villages, preparing for the upcoming Karo Day, a traditional festival which falls on Dec. 16.

"On this day, people provide traditional food and visit each other following the Sodoran ritual. As far as I remember, the last times the mountain spewed ash were in 1995, 1982 and 1948," Soedja'i said.

There is no official registration of population in the Tengger mountain area, but according to national park data, there are over 128,000 people living on the 58,800 hectares of the Bromo National Park. Most of them are farmers.

They live in groups in the hills of Tengger and Semeru mountains at altitudes of between 1,000 meters and 3,676 meters, where the average minimum temperature is between three and 18 degrees Celcius. (edt)