JAKARTA, Sept 7 — Eight Indonesian airports, including two serving Jakarta, remained closed early today because of volcanic ash from eruptions at Mount Anak Krakatau, the transport minister said.
Ash from Anak Krakatau, which lies halfway between the islands of Java and Sumatra, has blanketed Jakarta and several surrounding areas since it erupted late on Friday, prompting the airports to close for safety reasons.
The Transport Ministry said 170,000 people had been affected by flight cancellations.
Jakarta’s main airport will remain closed until 6 pm local time (7 pm Malaysian time), its operator said on Instagram today.
“We cannot ascertain when this will end due to the dynamic weather,” Transport Minister Dudy Purwagandhi said in a statement today.
He added that the seven other airports, including those serving the provinces of Lampung and West Java near Jakarta, would remain closed until at least 8.59 am.
The volcano monitoring agency’s website showed that Anak Krakatau’s most recent eruption occurred at 8.23 pm yesterday.
The agency warned today that “the probability of further eruptions in the coming periods remains high”.
The eruptions sent ash as high as 6,000 metres on the Java side of the volcano and 15,000 metres on the Sumatra side and over parts of Banten province in Java, meteorological agency BMKG said on its website.
Yesterday, the disaster agency advised people to wear masks while outdoors to avoid breathing in the ash.
Schools in Jakarta and Lampung will switch to remote learning to reduce health risks to students, state news agency Antara reported.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent.
Anak Krakatau, which means ‘child of Krakatau’, began emerging about a century ago from the area previously occupied by Krakatau, then known as Krakatoa.
The older volcano largely destroyed itself in massive eruptions in 1883, triggering a series of tsunamis that killed more than 36,000 people.
