Drivers Asked To Anticipate Lewotobi Eruption Hot Clouds, PVMBG Suggests Traffic Engineering

Visual eruption of Mount Lewotobi Male-Laki, East Flores, NTT accompanied by Hot Clouds Falls at 09.30 WITA, Monday (15/1/2024). (ANTARA)

The Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) recommends road engineering in areas that are recommended to prohibit activities to avoid the movement of the Mount Lewotobi Male Hot Cloud (APG), East Flores, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).

"We are coordinating to open road closures, anticipation when hot clouds flow north of the northeast spread more than one kilometer or our recommendation limit," said Head of the Center for Volcano Monitoring and Mitigation of the Land Movement for the Nusa Tenggara Region, Zakarias Ghele Raja in Wulangitang, East Flores, Monday.

As recommended by PVMBG, the highway around Dulipali Village, Ile Bura District, is within a five-kilometer radius which is a prohibited activity area.

However, the movement of the pyroclastic flow of hot clouds is still one kilometer long and has not exceeded the recommendation limit, so traffic activity on Trans Flores Street has not been closed.

However, said Zakarias, the direction of the APG flow can be predicted according to the map of the Disaster Prone Area (KRB), which is to the north-east of the sea. But the distance from the flow cannot be predicted because it depends on the volume of lava, slope of slope, and congestion (viscosital) from the lava.

Therefore, the anticipation of road engineering, he continued, must be carried out if the distance from APG slides further exceeds the recommendations. This has also been coordinated with the police, especially the Wulanggitang Police.

"What we are monitoring is now far away. Now it's one kilometer away, we'll see tomorrow. If it moves longer, so two to three kilometers we have to close the road, because we can predict the direction," he said.

PVMBG recorded that there were eight APGs with a sliding distance of one kilometer north on January 14, 2024. APG occurred due to heating the lava dome above the peak and being disbursed again and then avalanches occurred.

In the lava dome there is a trapped gas particle, he said, then there was an avalanche of pyroclastic material with a high-temperature gas flowing along the valley on the slopes of the volcano.

"The gas released itself at high temperatures with visuals like sheep fur which we call hot clouds," he said.