ALL REFUGEES DISPLACED BY MOUNT SINABUNG ERUPTION TO BE RELOCATED BY 2018 by Fardah

Jakarta, Oct 19, 2017 (Antara) - Some 2,117 families, being displaced by the eruption of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra Province since 2010, are still waiting to be relocated to permanent resettlement areas. 
    Normal life of these people has been thrown out of gear. They could neither make a normal living nor could their children attend schools since their villages had been destroyed by the volcanic eruptions that has been going on and off.
       Having been inactive for four centuries, Mount Sinabung has been coming back to life since 2010 and has been erupting sporadically. 
   Inhabitants of 10 villages located within a radius of three to five kilometers from the mountain top are waiting to be relocated to new settlement areas in three stages. 
   More than 30 thousand people across 34 villages were displaced from September 2013 to February 2014 as a result of the eruptions of the 2,600-meter-high mountain.
         President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) had signed a Presidential Decree No. 21 of 2015 on a task force for accelerating the relocation of victims affected by the eruptions. 
    In the first stage of the relocation program, 370 families, comprising of 1,212 people, were relocated to Siosar village, Merek sub-district, Karo District, in 2015.
         They had previously lived in three villages, namely Sukameriah, Bekerah, and Simacem, which are located on the slope of Mount Sinabung.
         Jokowi visited the natural disaster's victims in Siosar for the second time on Oct 14, 2017, after his first visit two years ago.
       He had held dialogs with several villagers and asked them whether they had planted and harvested crops, and they responded that indeed they had planted potatoes.

        In their new resettlement area, each refugee family has received a house and half a hectare of farming land from the government, which allocated some 250 hectares of land for this purpose.
         "The government is relocating the residents to a permanent location in Siosar Village to safeguard them from the dangers of the eruption of the mount," he revealed.
         The second stage of housing construction for 1,873 displaced families is currently being underway and is expected to finish by late 2017.
         "There is also a third stage of house construction for 1,080 other families. The houses will be built on a site of 470 hectares," Jokowi remarked.
         By the end of 2018, the relocation process of all refugees is expected be completed, he added.
         "We hope that the relocation of 1,873 families (KK) to 14 locations would be completed this year, and the relocation of the other 1,080 KK will be completed by next year. The Ministry of Environment (LHK) has identified locations for them," Jokowi stated at the Siosar relocation area, some 17 kilometers from Kabanjahe Town.
         The president urged the villagers to remain vigilant, as the mount¿s activities cannot be predicted.
         "We do not know when Sinabung will cease its volcanic activities. It is unpredictable, as the data I received on the tremors stated that it can reach more than 200 small, medium, and big eruptions," the president remarked.
        Willem Rampangilei, head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), who accompanied the Head of State during the visit, explained that his agency has spent Rp589.1 billion on emergency response, rehabilitation, and reconstruction works.
         Meanwhile, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of BNPB, explained that the agency spent Rp321.6 billion since 2013 for Mount Sinabung's refugees, particularly on educating their children and providing clean water, food, and electricity.
         He made the statement on Oct 12, 2017, while announcing that the mount erupted in the morning of that day, though there were no reports of casualties due to the disaster.
        "The local people are accustomed to seeing the mount erupt since the alert status was declared on June 2, 2015, and eruptions have occurred daily since then," he noted in a statement.
       The Mount Sinabung observation post recorded that the eruption had dispersed ash up to a height of 2 thousand meters into the air and let out an avalanche of hot cloud that traveled a distance of 1.5 thousand meters towards the south and 2 thousand meters in the east-southeast direction.
        On Feb. 1, 2014, the erupting volcano claimed many lives when it spewed clouds of hot and toxic ash, which dispersed across the Sukameriah village.
        The hot clouds instantaneously killed 14 people and caused serious burn injuries to three others. One of the critically wounded victims died in the hospital the next day, thereby raising the death toll to 15. 
   According to Wikipedia, Mount Sinabung is a Pleistocene-to-Holocene stratovolcano of andesite and dacite located on the Karo plateau of Karo District, 25 miles from Lake Toba supervolcano.
        Many old lava flows are on its flanks and the last known eruption, prior to recent times, occurred in the year 1600. Cracks where steam, gas, and lava are emitted were last observed on the summit in 1912, but no other documented events had taken place until an eruption in the early hours of Aug 29, 2010.  ***4***
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(T.F001/A/BESSR/A. Abdussalam) 20-10-2017