Indonesians fleeing volcano desperate to go home
Updated | By Staff Writer
Thousands of Indonesians displaced due to spewing volcano.

Thousands of people have been sheltering for months in mosques, churches and government buildings just out of reach of the past months' eruptions of Indonesia's Mount Sinabung. Despair and impatience has set in this week among the displaced farmers and other residents, as the volcano overshadowing their homes continues to spew hot ash and rock.
"I'm really worried about my crops," said Amsar Tarigan, a 51-year-old coffee farmer living near Sinabung in North Sumatra's Karo district. Many of the more than 22,000 people seeking refuge have left behind coffee, orange and cacao plantations. "We want to go home and live normal lives," he said. "Farming is the only thing we can do, otherwise we won't be able to survive." Tarigan said he had had to move twice because of the expansion of the exclusion zone.
Sinabung's eruptions mean that Tarigan and others might have to wait longer, with residents urged to stay out of a 7-kilometre exclusion zone. The volcano has erupted 220 times since Saturday, sending hot gas and rock 4.5 kilometres down its slopes, said Sutopo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency. The 2,460-metre volcano had been dormant for 400 years before it erupted in August 2010, forcing more than 30,000 to flee their homes.
Benny Kaban, a priest at the local Karo Protestant Church, said 19 displaced people had died of illness at the shelters while many others were showing signs of stress."People sit doing nothing, staring blankly into space," he said. "Some of them are showing compulsive behaviour, such as bathing repeatedly." "Many children don't go to school and are not being well taken care of," he said.
Kaban accused the Karo district government of neglecting its responsibility to help the displaced people. "It's been relying on the central government and aid groups to take care of the problem, while local officials are doing little," he said. "These people are farmers but they have been forced to eat rotten vegetables." The National Disaster Management Agency said it had spent 18 billion rupiah (1.5 million dollars) in relief aid, but insisted the main responsibility rests with the local government.
"It has not been declared a national disaster, which means that the local government is still capable of handling it," Nugroho said. "The district chief should see for himself the situation on the ground and talk to people and the media." While in most places there was enough food for the refugees, baby milk, drinking water, sanitary equipment and clothing were urgently needed, he said. There are nearly 130 active volcanoes across the Indonesian archipelago.
Mount Marapi in North Sumatra, not to be confused with Merapi on Java island, has been showing signs of increased activity in recent days, belching ash 12 times on Wednesday, according to the Centre of Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. Weeks of eruptions by Java's Merapi left more than 350 people dead and 150,000 displaced in 2010.
-Sapa
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