The western Indonesian island of Sumatra was struck by “cold lava” streaming from a volcano and flash floods that claimed at least 41 lives.
The most active volcano in Sumatra, Mount Marapi, had boulders and ash flowing down it after hours of intense rain on Saturday.
Over 100 homes, mosques, and public buildings were damaged, two districts were submerged, and several individuals lost their lives as a result of the mudslides.
There are still 17 unaccounted-for cases.
The survivors described how they ran from their houses as the “cold lava,” which is a combination of volcanic debris and stones that flows down a volcano’s slopes in the rain, approached.
“It sounded like boiling water, and I heard thunder.” The AFP news agency was informed by 43-year-old Rina Devina, a housewife from the Agam area, that the sound she heard was that of large rocks falling from Mount Marapi.
“As it was completely dark, I used my iPhone as a flashlight. I kept chanting, ‘God, have mercy,’ since the road was muddy, Ms. Devina recounted.
The mother of three continued by saying that four of her neighbors had perished and that a neighbor’s house had been “flattened by big rocks.”
The Indonesian and Tagalog word “lahar” is translated as “cold lava.” Depending on how they originate, temperatures can range from 0°C to 100°C, although most of the time they are below 50°C, according to many academic studies on the phenomenon.
According to the US Geological Survey, a moving lahar is like a “roiling slurry of wet concrete” that can expand in volume as it picks up additional material in its course.
According to the National Search and Rescue Agency, by Sunday afternoon, rescuers had located nine more victims in the nearby district of Tanah Datar and 19 bodies in the hardest-hit town of Canduang in the Agam district.
Another inhabitant of Agam, Berliana Reskyka, talked of his experiences tending to his injured neighbors.
Some others were sobbing uncontrollably because they thought that some of their family members were still missing. Others learned that their loved ones had passed away, Berliana told the BBC Indonesian.
According to environmental scientists speaking to BBC Indonesian, the flood is the most recent in a string of natural disasters that have been caused, at least in part, by human activity.
The Indonesian Forum for Environment’s West Sumatra branch director, Wengki Purwanto, stated that “excessive exploitation of natural resources and haphazard development” are to blame for the recurrent and intensifying flash floods and cold lava mudslides.
As a result, tragedies happen again every year. In actuality, their frequency rises yearly. The gap between one calamity and the next gets smaller,” he stated.
In the last six months, there have been other comparable calamities in the vicinity of Mount Marapi.
On December 5th, the volcano erupted, killing 23 hikers. Meanwhile, in February of this year, flash floods caused damage to several residences in Tanah Datar.
Huge ash clouds, reaching up to two kilometers in the sky, were thrown into the sky just last month during eruption days. Over 11,000 people were advised to evacuate, roads were stopped, and flights in the area were impacted.
“Mountain of Fire” is how the native Minang language refers to Marapi.
