Magelang- UGM geologists conducted socialization of the handling of cold lava flood from Merapi eruptions to hundreds of IDPs at Jumoyo Village Hall in Magelang on Tuesday night (14/12). The socialization was delivered through a waton puppet performance from Cipto Budoyo Merapi Tutup Ngisor group. On the sidelines of the event, people were given posters, showing them how to anticipate against cold lava floods. Two geologists, Ir. Bambang Widjaya Haryadi and Ir. Sudarno, MT, by turns gave information about some emergency response that are needed to be prepared by people when evacuating.
He suggested that people of Jumoyo village living in riverbanks to always pay attention to all information delivered by village officers. Furthermore, they should gather all family members, elderly people, women, children to go to a blunt point. “Always pay attention to instructions from group leaders, stay calm and on alert,” he said.
They should save important documents and things during evacuation, such as house ownership certificates, clothes, medicine and masks.
Sudarno emphasized that people should be alert, because presently it is very difficult to predict when cold lava flood will end while the rainy season occurs until February or March 2011. “The rain that falls on the mountain slopes will trigger the lava flooding,” he said. He also asked people to evacuate to higher grounds out of 300 meters from riverbanks.
Village Head of Jumoyo, Sungkono, said that currently there are more than 1100 IDPs from Jumoyo. They are from 6 hamlets who had already evacuated to Village Hall, SMK Muhammadiyah Building and several shelters,” he said.
He added that cold lava flood last week did not brought victims, but at least 18 houses and 38 shops at Jumoyo market were destroyed and submerged.
“Now, we haven’t calculated the loss,” he explained.
Meanwhile, to anticipate cold lava flooding, he has provided 20 handy talkies (HTs). The provision of these was taken from trucks that are excavating sand in Kali Putih River. He explained that each truck should pay a hundred thousands rupiah if on village's land and ten thousands rupiah on people's land.
“We used the fund to buy HTs that are distributed to local public figures to communicate continuously with each other if cold lava flooding occurs at anytime,” he said.
The daily need of thousands IDPs is fully handled by Jumoyo village officers with the aid from Magelang Regency government. The aid includes side dishes amounting to 4,500 rupiah each day for each person and 4 ounce of rice each day per person. Sungkono admitted that the aid is inadequate while the emergency response period will be over on December 22nd.