"The local residents have been evacuated," Head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) Sutopo Purwo said here on Tuesday.
He said that up to now a total of 124 families or some 489 villagers had been evacuated. Some 56 of them were children under five years old.
Sutopo said the conditions of the evacuees were good and logistics supplies were enough. Apart from that command posts had also been set up in the evacuation sites.
Sutopo said that BNPB had handed over Rp300 million to the regional disaster mitigation agency (BPBD) as an emergency response fund.
The local government has continued to provide guidance for the local people. "The Tomohon district head has also issued a statement on the emergency response status for Tomohon city," he said.
The BNPB has raised the status of Mount Lokon in North Sulawesi from standby to alert since Sunday night due to its increased activities.
Sutopo said the danger threats now were in the form of magmatic eruption accompanied by glowing materials, sand, dust rain and flow of hot lava.
He said that local people as well tourists were called on not to approach and carry out activities within the radius of 3.5 km from the crater.
"Residents are also asked to keep watch of possible lava stream from upstream areas down through the river," he said.
(SYS/A014/H-AJM)
Editor: Suryanto
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