Airlines cancel Jakarta flights

Mount Merapi (Indonesia): International airlines cancelled flights into Indonesia’s capital today after a volcano hundreds of kilometres to the west unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century, incinerating villagers as they fled a searing gas cloud.
President Obama is scheduled to arrive at Jakarta on October 9 after a three-day India visit.
The number of people killed by Mount Merapi in the last two weeks climbed to 138, as a tiny hospital at the foot the mountain struggled to cope with survivors, some with burns on up to 95 per cent of their bodies.
The only sign of life in one man, whose eyes were milky grey in colour and never blinked, was the shallow rising and falling of his chest. Others, their lungs choked with abrasive volcanic ash, struggled to breathe.
Indonesia’s most volatile mountain unleashed a surge of searing gas, rocks and debris yesterday that raced down its slopes at highway speeds, mowing down the slope-side village of Bronggang and leaving a trail of charred corpses in its path.
It continued to rumble and groan today, at times spitting ash up to 8km in the air, dusting windshields, rooftops and leaves on trees hundreds of kilometres to the west.
07/11/10 AP/The Telegraph

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Categories: Foreign Nov 2010, Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2010