Twin Disasters in Indonesia

Two natural disasters have occurred almost simultaneously in Indonesia. A volcanic eruption and tsunami killed dozens of people in separate locations with a distance of hundreds of miles.

On Tuesday (26 October 2010) Mount Merapi in Central Java erupted, killing at least 25 people, while thousands of others forced to flee deep into the mountain slopes safer. The volcano has been spewing high-temperature ash and smoke to the air above the island of Java.

Meanwhile, in the Mentawai islands that exist off the coast of western Sumatra, which lies about 800 miles west of Mount Merapi, on Sunday (24 October 2010) had an earthquake to 7.2 on the Richter scale, followed by tsunami waves with a height of 10-feet . Devastating tsunami waves had swept hundreds of homes, killing at least 150 residents of local communities, while there were about 500 people missing.

In 2006 Mount Merapi had erupted, killing two people. Similar eruptions occurred on 1994, killing 60 people. While the explosion in 1930 killed 1,300 people.

At first, many local villagers refused to move from the fertile slopes of the volcano. They said they want to stay there while protecting homes and their possessions. However, due to increasingly desperate situation, then the thousands of villagers began flocking to places of refugee in emergency shelters Tuesday night.

According to the news broadcast on television , the victims died have already reached more than 25 people, while dozens of people in critical condition since suffering serious burns from hot clouds that glide brunt of Tuesday evening . The victims were taken to hospitals in Yogyakarta.

Before that, the volunteers try to help displaced residents living near the crater of Mount Merapi. Unfortunately not all people who want to leave his home which was in danger of heat clouds from time to time to slide down, sweeping everything in its path.Those who did not want to evacuate that ultimately killed on Tuesday night.