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Indonesia: Mount Merapi Volcano - Jul 1998

Disaster description

Indonesia's most active volcano, Mount Merapi, erupted early Saturday, 11 July 1998, spewing a heat and gas cloud over an area of seven kilometres, news agencies reported. [...] On 9 July 1998, Mount Merapi has been upgraded to "alert" status, one step short of requiring mass evacuations. On Saturday, 11 July 1998, the "alert" was changed to "danger", the highest warning on the scale. The four stages of warning for Merapi are normal active, caution, alert and danger. As of 13 July 1998, there were no reports of casualties and the government has eased the warning from "danger" back to "alert" requiring people to be prepared to flee at short notice. The provincial administration has sent relief teams, including medical workers, to 15 villages in Dukun, a subdistrict with a population of about 41,000. (OCHA, 15 Jul 1998)

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