Passengers Stranded After Volcanic Ash Forces Airport Closures in Indonesia

Around 170,000 passengers have been left stranded after a volcanic eruption forced Indonesian authorities to temporarily suspend operations at eight airports.

Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport was the first to be closed on Sunday morning after ash from Anak Krakatau was detected in the airspace near the airport.

The Transport Ministry said 1,558 flights had been delayed, with the affected airports remaining closed until midnight.

The volcano began erupting late on Friday night, generating continuous seismic activity, lava fountains and booming sounds across surrounding regions. Two more eruptions occurred early on Sunday, authorities said.

The Transport Ministry said the suspension of operations mainly affected flights to and from Singapore, as well as other international routes, including Doha, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur.

Transport Minister Dudy Purwagandhi said the decision to temporarily close more airports was made after tests found that volcanic ash had spread towards West Java.

He urged airlines to speed up the process of refunding tickets for passengers affected by flight cancellations and provide timely information to those with upcoming flights to avoid overcrowding at airports.

According to Indonesia’s meteorological agency, BMKG, ash reached as high as 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) east of the volcano on Java and 50,000 feet (15,000 metres) west of the volcano on the Sumatra side.

Authorities have confirmed that there is no tsunami warning linked to the volcano’s recent activity in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra.

The Health Minister has urged residents in affected areas to stay indoors and wear face masks to protect against respiratory, eye and skin problems.

According to local newspaper Kompas, several schools cancelled activities on Saturday after students and residents reported eye irritation caused by the ash. Some fishermen also cancelled fishing trips after reporting sore eyes.

One resident, Aldi Candra Prayogi, told the outlet that since Friday evening, it had felt like “small grains of sand had gotten into my eyes” and that he needed to use eye drops to ease the irritation.

The dust was so thick that he had to sweep the front yard of his house every five minutes, he added.

Anak Krakatau, which means Child of Krakatoa, has been sporadically active since it emerged from the sea at the beginning of the last century in the caldera formed after the 1883 eruption of Mount Krakatoa.

The volcano, also known as Anak Krakatoa, collapsed in December 2018, triggering a huge tsunami that killed more than 400 people and displaced and injured thousands more along the nearby coastlines of Sumatra and Java.

Scientists found that some of the chunks of rock that slid from the volcano during the collapse were about 70 to 90 metres high.

The Pacific Ring of Fire refers to a string of volcanoes, earthquake sites and tectonic plates around the Pacific. It stretches across 40,000km (25,000 miles), from the southern tip of South America to New Zealand.

Roughly 90 per cent of all earthquakes occur along the area, while the ring is home to 75 per cent of all active volcanoes on Earth — about 452 individual active volcanoes.