"The overflowing of the Putih and Pabelan rivers has brought mud and the Mount Merapi`s volcanic materials into certain parts of Magelang district," Arief Setyohadi said here Monday.
In response to this emergency situation, the PMI had deployed 20 rescue workers to evacuate people from the danger zone. The volcano`s cold lava floods had inundated tens of houses, he said.
The overflowing of the two rivers could threaten residents of two worst-hit hamlets, namely Ngemplak hamlet in Mungkit subdistrict and Sirahan hamlet in Salam subdistrict, he said.
"Our people immediately evacuated them to refugee shelters in safe zones," Arief Setyohadi, who was in charge of the PMI-Magelang chapter`s resources division, said.
Arief said the mountain`s cold lava floods had submerged the people`s houses since Sunday evening. Besides rescue workers, the PMI also sent an ambulance to the disaster zone.
Tens of residents were stranded inside their flood-hit houses but they could be evacuated by the PMI volunteers to safer areas, he said.
The PMI volunteers had also distributed biscuits to 600 displaced people from Ngemplak hamlet who were currently being sheltered at Ngrajek village`s hall, he said.
On Sunday evening, the cold lava floods had also paralyzed access roads linking Jarak Kidul hamlet and Sepi hamlet in Jrakah village, Selo subdistrict, Central Java district of Boyolali.
Head of Jrakah village, Tumar, said the roads were covered with landslides so that road traffic became totally disrupted following the volcano`s lava floods.
Despite the serious landslides and lava floods, there were no reports of fatalities so far, Tumar said.
But a rescue worker from Jalin Merapi, Sinam Sutarno, said the lava floods had also caused two bridges to collapse in Klakah village.
The bridges linked the areas of Wonolelo village, Sawangan subdistsrict, Magelang district, to Klakah village in Boyolali district, he said.
Mount Merapi had erupted repeatedly in the past two or three weeks but its most fatal
eruptions occurred on October 26 and November 5, 2010.
As a result of the eruptions, at least 259 people had perished and many others
sustained serious burns and became displaced.
Mount Merapi, on the border between two provinces, lies geographically close to Yogyakarta but is officially part of Central Java.
Besides killing and injuring several hundred people, eruptions had also damaged 867 hectares of forested land on the volcano`s slopes in Sleman District, Yogyakarta, with material losses estimated at Rp33 billion.
Mount Merapi is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia, whose eruptions have regularly been detected since 1548. (*)
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
