North Sulawesi’s Mount Lokon enters second day of eruption
Mount
Lokon, near the North Sulawesi town of Tomohon, entered its second
day of eruption on Friday, belching heaps of ash and smoke into the
atmosphere.
8
December, 2012
“People
are asked to remain alert and not conduct any activities within a 2.5
kilometer radius around the Tompuluan crater of Mount Lokon,” said
Farid Bima, who heads the volcano monitoring outpost near the
mountain.
The
1,579-meter-high volcano first erupted at around 5:18 p.m. on
Thursday, sending a column of ash and smoke that reached some 3,500
meters high.
The
ash fell mostly on the southeastern slope of the volcano.
Farid
said that so far there had been no report of casualties or damages,
and reiterated that the alert status of the mountain was still at
“ready,” or two rungs above normal and one below full eruption.
Mount
Lokon has demonstrated rising volcanic activities since mid-year, he
added, and has been undergoing a series of small and large eruptions.
Tomohon
Mayor Jemmy Eman announced on Friday a 2.5 kilometer-radius
danger-zone and also prepared areas to shelter people if any
evacuations needed to take place.
However,
he said there was no need for people on the upper slopes of the
mountain to be evacuated, since the eruptions so far were not deemed
major threats.
“Therefore,
there will not be any evacuations yet,” said Arnold Poli, the city
secretary.
An
eruption of Mount Lokon last month prompted the evacuation of some
5,000 people from its upper slopes.
Hoyke
Makarawung, the head of the North Sulawesi Disaster Mitigation
Agency, said that his institution had already readied assistance
should any evacuation take place in the areas affected by the
discharge.
“We
are continuously monitoring the condition [of the volcano],” he
said.
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