Reuters
An Indonesian air force training aircraft, the AS 202 flies over the area around the Krasak river, near Mount Merapi volcano, Yogyakarta December 1, 2010.JAKARTA - Indonesian scientists Friday downgraded the alert status of Mount Merapi from its highest level after it killed more than 320 people in a series of violent eruptions that started in late October.
“The decision was taken this morning at 9:00 am (0200GMT) as its eruption activities continue to slow down,” the head of the volcanology office, Subandrio, told AFP from a monitoring office in Yogyakarta, the main city south of Merapi.
He said that more than 250,000 people who had been living in evacuation shelters were now allowed to return to their homes, except for those who lived in the worst affected district, Sleman, on the southern slope.
“The volcano’s threat is now limited to only some parts on the southern slope. People are not allowed to do activities there.”
Many of the dead were buried under fast-flowing torrents of boiling hot gas and rock that incinerated villages on southern slopes when the volcano exploded on November 5, its biggest eruption in over a century.
The volcano, located on the central island of Java, killed around 1,300 people in 1930 but experts say the latest eruptions are its biggest since 1872.
source : kompas.com
