Indonesia's rumbling volcano causes flight cancellations and panic for tourists

Thousands of travelers were stranded.

An active volcano in Java, Indonesia has been rumbling and spewing ashes over the last week, causing flight cancellations to tourist hub Bali and other destinations. Transportation authorities decided to suspend flights because the amount of volcanic ash could be dangerous for aircraft, but considered reopening other airports to cater stranded travelers. Some of the visitors claimed to be surprised by the lack of proper information dissemination about whether their flights were cancelled and why.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - According to the reports, Mount Raung has been rumbling since several weeks ago, but was observed to have increased its level of activity recently and purged volcanic ash and debris at 3,800 meters high into the air on Friday.

The volcano is located at the East Java province, about a 150 kilometers from the international airport in Bali. Due to the spew, authorities were forced to close down and cancel transportation activities from five airports, said a volcanologist from the Indonesian government, Gede Suantika. Cancellations in the Ngurah Rai airport had affected 160 domestic flights and 117 international to and from Bali.

Suantika explained that the government urged people to avoid going to the 3-kilometer high danger zone around Mount Raung. However, evacuating the people living near the volcano was at that point still out of the question, but they are asked by authorities to wear masks.

Another official explained that because of the cancellations, thousands of people are already stranded with Indonesia's millions of people from Muslim communities in the country who are flying out of the city to their villages in celebration of the end of the Ramadan.

"The airline can't tell us if we're going to be here tonight or fly tomorrow or the next day. This is really difficult for us. We have to basically find some way to stay," said Australian traveler Charmaine Scott.

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