Flight chaos as volcano death toll rises to 138

AIRLINES cancelled flights into Indonesia's capital yesterday after a volcano hundreds of miles to the west unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century, incinerating villagers as they fled a searing gas cloud.

So far 138 people have died as a result of Mount Merapi's eruptions. A tiny hospital at the volcano's foot is struggling to cope with survivors, some suffering 95 per cent burns

Indonesia's most volatile mountain unleashed a surge of gas, rocks and debris on Friday that plummeted down its slopes, crashing through the village of Bronggang and leaving a trail of charred corpses in its wake.

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The 9,700ft volcano, whose latest eruptions started two weeks ago, continued to rumble and groan yesterday, at times spitting ash up to five miles in the air, with the fallout covering vehicle windscreens and roofs hundreds of miles to the west.

Just days before US president Barack Obama's visit to Indonesia, international airlines cancelled flights to Jakarta over concerns about the volcano, 280 miles away.

Azharuddin Osman, director of operations for Malaysia Airlines, said: "The volcanic ash presence in the airways surrounding Jakarta could cause severe damage to our aircraft and engines, which could impair the safety of our operations including passengers and crew."

The airline, which also halted flights to airports in Bandung and Yogyakarta, said the Jakarta route would be affected for at least two days.

Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia were among other carriers suspending flights. However, domestic flights were unaffected.

The Indonesian government has expanded the danger zone to 12 miles around the volcano, bringing it to the edge of the ancient royal capital of Yogyakarta. Officials have put the city on its highest alert.

The biggest threat is the Code river, which flows into the city of 400,000 people from the mountain and could carry a wave of volcanic mud formed by heavy rain.

Racing at speeds of 60mph, the molten lava, rocks and other debris can destroy everything in their path. People living near the river's banks have been advised to stay away.

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Sigit Priohutomo, a senior hospital official, confirmed the mountain has claimed 138 lives in the past two weeks. Many of the dead were believed to be children from Argomulyo village, 11 miles from the crater.

Victims were covered in hot ash following the latest eruption.

Local hospital spokesman Heru Nugroho said: "We're totally overwhelmed here."

One rescuer said: "I found three bodies - a child, mother and father - still on their bed. They must have been sleeping when the hot ash struck their house. We also found a dead man with a phone still on his hand."

At least 94 of the deaths happened on Friday, Mount Merapi's deadliest day in decades. More than 200 others were injured with burns, respiratory problems, broken bones and cuts, leaving the tiny hospital at Sardjito overwhelmed.

It has the only burns unit in town, with just nine beds.

Dr Ishandono Dahlan said extra ventilators for burns victims could not be flown in because nearby airports had been closed due to poor visibility. As a result, nursing students were pumping emergency respirators by hand.

Officials said the small unit had been forced to turn away all but the worst cases.

Those with severe smoke inhalation - which scorches and inflames lung tissue, are receiving top priority, since the only ventilators in the hospital are in the unit. Next, the severity and extent of burns is considered.

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Dahlan, who is a plastic surgeon, said he has eight ventilators - not even one for every bed in the unit - and needs at least four more. It remains unclear whether or not he will get them.

Even patients with milder cases of smoke inhalation who weren't on the special ward needed access to the machines, he said.

"If they're not on a ventilator, they're inhaling more ash," said Dahlan.

The unit is supposed to be the most sterile in the hospital since burns are essentially open wounds and prone to infection.

While a pass code restricts entry, Dahlan said it's a struggle to keep the unit hermetically sealed.

Families crowd the hospital's hallways, sleeping on mats, and a layer of dust covers everything, from the stretchers to the doctors' white coats.

Conditions were also deteriorating at emergency shelters in the shadow of the volcano that were crammed with more than 200,000 people evacuated from the mountain's slopes.

With muddy floors and flies landing on the faces of sleeping refugees, many complained of poor sanitation, saying there were not enough toilets or clean drinking water. They also worried about what was yet to come.

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"It's scary. The eruption just keeps going on," said Wajiman, 58, who was sitting in a shelter near a girl reading a newspaper headlined "Merapi isn't finished yet".

Merapi's latest round of eruptions began on 26 October, followed by more than a dozen other powerful blasts and thousands of tremors.

With each new eruption, scientists and officials have steadily pushed the villagers who live along Merapi's fertile slopes farther from the epicentre of activity, the volcano's crater.

The latest eruption released 1,765 million cubic feet of volcanic material, making it "the biggest in at least a century" at Merapi, state volcanologist Gede Swantika said as plumes of smoke continued to shoot up more than 30,000ft.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific Ocean. The eruptions come as Indonesia is also dealing with the aftermath of a tsunami which hit the Mentawai islands last week, killing more than 400 people and leaving thousands homeless.

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