The con­tin­u­ing vol­canic erup­tions on Java near Bali con­tin­ues with ash that has at times, depend­ing upon wind direc­tion, stopped flights to the pop­u­lar hol­i­day destination.

The dis­rup­tions also came as mil­lions of Indone­sians set off on hol­i­days ahead of the Mus­lim cel­e­bra­tion of Eid.

ORARI (Organ­isasi Amatir Radio Indone­sia), the IARU mem­ber soci­ety, is work­ing close­ly with the Gov­ern­ment Agency on Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment (Badan Nasion­al Penang­gu­lan­gan Bencana/ BNPB), the Mete­o­rol­o­gy && Weath­er (Badan Mete­o­rol­o­gy, Kli­ma­tol­ogy & Geofisika/ BMKG) also the Vol­canol­o­gy Department.

This work­ing group mon­i­tor­ing the vol­cano and weath­er sit­u­a­tions use the tele­met­ri­cal instru­ment set up by the Yogyakar­ta Province HQ Chair­man, Pro­fes­sor Soe­narno YB2YOU.

The infor­ma­tion is then sent by him to a net­work, using ORARI repeaters as well as Inter­net and social media admin­is­tra­tion Agung YC7WAA.

They also have a joint oper­a­tions with the Indone­sian Red Cross (PMI), the local hos­pi­tal oper­at­ed by Min­istry of Health (Puskesmas) and the Police Department.

So, the ORARI of Yogyakar­ta is mon­i­tor­ing on the Mt. Mer­api activ­i­ty, and the ORARI of East Java is mon­i­tor­ing on Mt. Raung moun­tain, which is blow­ing ash­es up to 2km in the air on Indone­si­a’s main island of Java.

Mt Raung began to spew lava and ash high into the air late last month. How­ev­er the data showed that it’s declin­ing now. The expert said that Mt. Raung will now not erupt like it did in the 1953/1955 situation.

ORARI has been asked to bring this good news to the com­mu­ni­ty. The sit­u­a­tion is one of being alert but no need to pan­ic. Two air­ports, Surabaya and Malang, were closed today.

The shut­down of the inter­na­tion­al air­port at Surabaya, on the main island of Java, came days after the air­port on the near­by hol­i­day island of Bali was closed by ash from the same vol­cano, strand­ing thou­sands of holidaymakers.

The main con­cern is that the ash could become molten glass when enter­ing air­craft engines.

Very recent­ly Mt. Gamala­ma at Ter­nate Island also erupt­ed and throw­ing ash­es 1–1.5 km into the air. The Min­istry of Trans­porta­tion has issued a NOTAM for Ter­nate Airport.

Indone­sia has 130 active vol­ca­noes and occa­sion­al­ly they dis­rupt air flights and have local impacts.

A report on the activ­i­ty is like­ly to be pre­sent­ed at the IARU Region 3 meet­ing in Bali in October.

— IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee report by Tri­a­di P. Supar­ta YB0KVN, and Jim Lin­ton VK3PC.