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Dompu, West
Nusa Tenggara. Residents who have spent most of their lives living on the
slopes of Indonesia’s infamous Mount Tambora volcano are unfazed by the
rumblings they are increasingly feeling from underneath the earth and warnings
from the authorities.
The status
of Tambora, responsible for by far the deadliest eruption in human history, was
raised at 11 a.m. on Tuesday to the second-highest alert status. Located on
Sumbawa island just east of Lombok, the volcano first starting showing signs of
awakening in April. In early August, it spewed thick, white smoke 20 meters
into the sky.
Despite the
activity, residents said they were not worried, according to Syaifullah, the
head of the Pekat subdistrict, which lies on the mountain’s slope.
“The
hundreds of families in the villages and hamlets that lay between five to 10
kilometers from the peak have not shown any panic and continue to conduct their
daily activity as usual,” Syaifullah said.
Authorities
have not ordered any evacuations and have only warned residents to be on alert.
Two villages, Pancasila and Doro Peti, are situated within five kilometers of
Tambora’s peak.
The
volcano’s April 10, 1815, eruption killed more than 90,000 people, including
those who died in the aftermath of the event from famine and disease. It is
estimated to have had a Volcanic Explosivity Index value of 7, the only such
explosion since the Hatepe eruption in New Zealand in 180 AD and only the fifth
in human history.
Classified
as a “supercolossal event,” Tambora’s 1815 eruption ejected immense amounts of
volcanic dust into the upper atmosphere, significantly impacting the global
climate for many years afterward. In Indonesia, the volcano’s roar could be
heard more than 800 miles away.
Dust and
sulfur emitted by the volcano are thought to be the cause of the “Year Without
a Summer” in Europe and the Americas in 1816, which caused massive crop
failures and widespread famine.
There is a
possibility that an explosion of the same scale could happen again. Despite the
magnitude of the 1815 event, though, residents have some cause for optimism.
The volcano has erupted three times since 1815, but none of those events
achieved a VEI value of more than 2.
The
province is planning a bicentenary commemoration in 2015 of the eruption of the
volcano. Infrastructure improvements were being carried out across the province
to be completed by 2015, including the construction of a new port.
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