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All Rinjani climbers come down safe

Local authorities in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) have ensured that all tourists climbing Mount Rinjani have been brought down from the mountain after the province’s disaster mitigation agency (BPBD) released a safety warning due to serious volcanic activity inside the scenic mountain

Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post)
Mataram
Fri, September 30, 2016

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All Rinjani climbers come down safe

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ocal authorities in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) have ensured that all tourists climbing Mount Rinjani have been brought down from the mountain after the province’s disaster mitigation agency (BPBD) released a safety warning due to serious volcanic activity inside the scenic mountain.

The BPBD said all visitors had left the climbing track by Thursday.

“We can assure [the public that] all tourists and climbers have come down and moved outside of a 3-kilometer radius around Mt. Barujari,” BPBD head Muhammad Rum said, referring to the smaller volcano in the crater of Mt. Rinjani.

All of them came down after a joint team from the BPBD in NTB and North Lombok as well as personnel from the Mt. Rinjani National Park agency told them to prioritize their safety and come down.

Rum said that as of Thursday morning volcanic activity was decreasing, however, the climbing track was still closed. “We are keeping the climbing track closed until it is safe for people to climb,” he added.

As reported earlier, Mt. Barujari erupted at noon on Tuesday, spewing volcanic ash 2,000 meters into the sky. Disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said Wednesday that the status of the volcano had been increased from “normal active” to “cautious”.

“We are continuing to monitor the volcano,” he added.

Local authorities became worried after learning that, according to data from a checkpoint in Sembalun on Sept. 25-27, as many as 132 tourists, 102 of foreigners, were climbing Mt. Rinjani on Wednesday afternoon.

To avoid any casualties, local authorities quickly sent personnel to retrieve them. “We deployed a team to track them down,” Rum said on Wednesday afternoon.

Thankfully, as the tourists were still on the climbing track and had not yet reported leaving the track through the Sembalun post, the rescue team was able to reach them.

Normally, it takes an average of two to three days to climb Mt. Rinjani from the entrance gate.

“But, they were already within a 3 km radius from the center of the Mt. Barujari eruption,” Rum said.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said 389 tourists were still climbing Mt. Rinjani when Mt. Barujari erupted on Tuesday at about 2:45 p.m. local time.

Rum said that from the observation conducted by the team in Sembalun, the people living around Mt. Rinjani in Sembalun district were still going about their daily activities as per normal.

“Based on information from the observation post in Sembalun, the [volcanic] activity of Mt. Barujari has been gradually decreasing, but we continue to call on people to maintain alertness,” he said.

NTB National SAR Agency (Basarnas) spokesperson, I Putu Cakra, said his office had deployed an evacuation team to Senaru in North Lombok and Sembalun in East Lombok in case evacuation was needed.

“As of today there has no instruction to carry out an evacuation, but we have deployed the team to stand by in Senaru and Sembalun as an anticipatory measure,” Cakra said.

BNPB spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said people living around Mt. Rinjani and visitors were not allowed to enter the caldera area of the volcano as well as the area within a 3 km radius from the crater of Mt. Barujari, which is located in the caldera of Mt. Rinjani.

Separately, spokesperson of airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I of the Lombok International Airport (LIA), I Nyoman Siang, said that the volcanic activities of Mt. Barujari had not disturbed flights at LIA.

“The airport operation is still normal. The flights are also running smoothly,” Siang said on Wednesday, adding that the airport had accommodated 39 domestic flights and three international flights that day.

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