Seven Indonesian airports remain shut due to volcanic ash from Anak Krakatau

TANGERANG, Indonesia, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Seven Indonesian airports, including two serving Jakarta, remained closed on Monday because of volcanic ash from eruptions at Mount Anak Krakatau as around 341,000 travellers were affected by flight cancellations and delays, officials said.

Ash from Anak Krakatau, which sits halfway between Java and Sumatra islands, has blanketed Jakarta and several surrounding areas since it erupted late on Friday, leading to the closure of the airports for safety reasons.

Around 341,000 people have been affected by the delay, diversion, or cancellation of 2,961 flights, said Indonesia’s chief infrastructure minister, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono.

Jakarta’s main airport, Soekarno-Hatta will remain closed with six other airports until 23:59 on Monday local time (1659 GMT), Transport Minister Dudy Purwagandhi said.

Dudy said the closure was extended to give the airport time to clean the runway, taxiway and apron, and give airline operators time to prepare their fleets.

“We want to ensure that the volcanic ash is moving away from the airports located around Mount Anak Krakatau,” he said.

On Monday, passengers at Soekarno-Hatta, which is located in the city of Tangerang, adjacent to Jakarta, were frantically looking for the status of their flights on the information boards. Some were sleeping on benches. 

Carlos Zabala, 24, was travelling to his native Spain after a vacation when he learned his flight was repeatedly delayed. Expressing his frustration, he blamed operators for the lack of clarity.

“All we have to do is wait, and wait, and wait,” he said.

President Prabowo Subianto chaired a virtual meeting on Monday with authorities on the eruption, as well as an August 15 earthquake that killed more than 130 people in eastern Indonesia and the ongoing forest fires, saying that the disaster mitigation budget needed to rise significantly.

“This is our destiny, a country located in the ring of fire,” he said, adding that more helicopters and water pumps are needed to mitigate disasters. “For the future, we will take anticipatory steps.” 

RED SKY

At night, the lava from Anak Krakatau lit the sky red as it erupted. Residents were sweeping the dusty floors of their homes and the blackened walls of a nearby mosque, Reuters photographs showed. 

Anak Krakatau is one of about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seismically active zone where different plates on the earth’s crust meet to create a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Anak Krakatau, which means child of Krakatau, began emerging a century ago from the area previously occupied by Krakatau, then known as Krakatoa. The older volcano destroyed itself in mass eruptions in 1883, which killed more than 36,000 people after triggering a series of tsunamis.

A tsunami after an eruption at Anak Krakatau in 2018 killed over 400 people. 

Renowned volcano expert Surono told Reuters that it was dangerous to fly as sulphur and silica-laden ash could damage plane engines and visibility was low due to the ash spread, especially with a lack of rain.

“For Anak Krakatau, the recent eruption was unusual,” he said. 

The volcano monitoring agency’s website showed the most recent Anak Krakatau eruption occurred on Sunday at 8:23 p.m.

The agency warned on Monday that “the probability of further eruptions in the coming periods remains high.”

The eruptions have seen ash towers reach as high as 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) on the Java side of the volcano and 50,000 feet (15,000 metres) on the Sumatra side and in some parts of Banten province in Java, meteorological agency BMKG posted on its website.

On Sunday, the disaster agency called for people to wear masks while travelling outdoors to avoid breathing in the ash. In Jakarta and Lampung, schools will use remote learning to counter health risks for students, state news agency Antara reported.

(Reporting by Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana, Stanley Widianto, Stefanno Sulaiman, and Ananda Teresia; Editing by John Mair, David Stanway and Louise Heavens)