/ 15 May 2006

Merapi spews deadly ‘shaggy goats’

As Mount Merapi starts to spew deadly heat clouds down its flank, fear is beginning to grip residents living in the shadow of the rumbling volcano.

For Maryoto, the appearance of the ”shaggy goats”, as the locals call the searing clouds of volcanic gases, ash and dust, brings back terrible memories of Merapi’s last eruption in November 1994, which killed 66 people.

”I tremble with fear every time I hear Merapi burp or when I see the ‘shaggy goats’ coming out of the mountain,” says the 50-year-old.

Maryoto has every reason to tremble. His ears were melted and he lost all his fingers when a heat cloud descended on the village of Sidomoro on the slopes of the volcano. His arms and legs were also badly scarred.

The cloud hit a house where he was helping a relative prepare festivities for the wedding of a cousin-in-law. He was the only survivor in the house. Forty-three others perished.

With temperature reaching 600 degrees Celsius, the heat clouds consume everything in their path.

”First there was the sound of thunder, although the day was clear and hot,” he said. ”It suddenly went very dark and I could see vaguely in the background a reddish sky.”

The cloud collapsed a wall on top of him and his uncle and aunt.

Maryoto woke up in hospital where he spent the next five months and underwent nine operations for his horrific burns. His aunt and uncle were among the dozens killed.

Closer to Mount Merapi and right in the present danger zone, only the men are left behind in Wonokerto village just 7km from the peak.

”Only the able men are allowed to stay to guard their homes and livestock. Everyone else is now in safe shelter,” says Harjo, who heads the disaster agency for Wonokerto village.

Harjo says people in other villages — especially those living along the Kali Krasak River, whose course has been taken by lava and heat clouds in past eruptions — are also now voluntarily leaving their homes to seek safety with relatives elsewhere.

”Today [Monday] we have 74 people evacuating from Tlatar hamlet, on the bank of Kali Krasak,” he says at the Wonokerto village head’s office, next to a hall where more than 500 people are sheltering.

Trucks, buses and minivans have been readied to evacuate people at the first sign of danger, he said.

Heat clouds rolled as far as 4km down the slopes of the 2 914m Merapi on Monday, said Tri Yani of the vulcanology office in Yogyakarta, 30km south of the volcano.

Authorities raised the volcano’s alert status to the top level on Saturday.

”I have been here for one week, others have been here for two weeks,” says Ismiyatun, a young mother in her 20s, cradling her four-month-old baby in her arms.

Ismiyatun says she left Wonokerto’s Tunggularum hamlet only one week ago because to help with a neighbour’s wedding. Her husband remained behind to guard the house.

”He is also scared of the heat clouds, but someone has to guard our home. He has promised me that he will leave as soon as the hamlet appears threatened,” Ismiyatun says.

Marsini, one of her neighbours, is also sheltering in a classroom at the primary school next to the village office. ”My husband is also still in the village, but food is sent there three time daily from here,” Marsini said.

The camp has a common kitchen under a tent in the schoolyard churning out simple meals for the 539 people registered as sheltering there.

”The heat clouds reached the northernmost part of our hamlet in 1994, but there was no one hurt,” Ismiyatun says.

Harjo said that in a 1964 eruption, lava also reached Tunggularum.

Sutanto, from a disaster coordination task force, says evacuation is proceeding in the villages in the danger zone.

”We are not forcing people to leave, but are persuading them through village elders and other community leaders to leave. But we cannot force them. If they want to stay to guard their homes and livestock, we can only provide the means for them to escape quickly in case of danger,” Sutanto says.

Maryoto hopes he will not see a repeat of the 1994 disaster. ”I hope no one suffers the same fate as mine,” he says. — Sapa-AFP