Mount Barujari Erupts, Authorities Search Hundreds of Tourists
28 September 2016 08:22 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Mount Barujari, located at the caldera of Mount Rinjani, has errupted at 2:45 PM Tuesday, spewing a two-kilometer column of ash. The status of Mount Rinjani has been upgraded from Active and Normal (level I) to Alert (level II).
“Intensive monitoring continues to be done to evaluate the level of [volcanic] activity at Mount Rinjani,” head of Data, Information and Public Relations Bureau, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said Tuesday in a written statement.
Locals and tourists around Mount Rinjani are not allowed to enter the caldera of Mount Rinjani within a radius of 3km from Barujari cone. Sutopo estimated that 389 tourists were at Mount Rinjani when it erupted.
Mount Rinjani National Park official reported that some 333 foreign tourists and 56 local ones had climbed the mountain between September 25 to 27 through Sembalun entry point.
The Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) of West Nusa Tenggara and East Lombok, TNGR, police, Mount Rinjani monitoring outpost personnel and volunteers continue to coordinate to search the tourists at the Mountain.
Sutopo said that after an eruption on Tuesday noon Lombok International Airport continues to operate normally. “Thin layer of ash has been spread across several areas by strong winds, people’s normal daily activities are not interrupted,” he said.
GHOIDA RAHMAH