Several flights to and from Bali have been cancelled after the Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano began spewing ash as high as 9km in the sky.
Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia grounded more than a dozen flights on Tuesday and Wednesday scheduled to arrive or depart from the Denpasar Airport, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded, after the volcanic eruption near the popular tourist destination in Indonesia.
At least 10 people died and several others sustained injuries last week in the volcanic eruption on the Indonesian island of Flores, located about 500km east of Bali.
The volcano has been spewing smoldering rocks, lava and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash from the crater since last week, affecting more than 10,000 people in 10 villages. Nearly 6,000 villagers moved into makeshift emergency shelters after the eruption, which destroyed seven schools, nearly two dozen houses and a convent on the majority-Catholic island.
Jetstar said all flights to and from Denpasar Airport have been cancelled until at least 2pm (local time) on Wednesday. “Impacted customers have been notified directly and provided a range of options,” the airline said in a statement.
It added that the options included “rebooking their travel for no charge or cancelling their bookings and obtaining a voucher to the value of their untravelled”.
The airline said it intended to operate at least two additional return services between Australia and Bali on Wednesday to clear the backlog of passengers stranded at the airport.
Virgin Airlines said it cancelled at least 10 flights in and out of Indonesia for Wednesday due to “adverse weather”.
“The safety of our guests and crew is our highest priority. Adverse weather due to the volcano in Indonesia has resulted in Virgin Australia cancelling all flights in and out of Denpasar today,” it added.
Two Qantas return flights scheduled to go from Australia to Denpasar has been delayed so far. The airline will reportedly resume operations from Sydney International Airport at about 4.30pm (local time) on Wednesday.
Garuda Indonesia flights were delayed in both directions, 9News reported
People have taken to social media to share their ordeal, complaints of not receiving food or accommodation support.
Mark Wilson, who was en route to Bali to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary, said the flight sat on the tarmac for about an hour on Tuesday before the passengers were informed to deboard.
“I’d like to think we’ll make it over there … But I’ve got a bad feeling,” the holidaymaker from travelling from Gippsland told Sydney Morning Herald.
The 1,584m volcano on the remote island of Flores has shot billowing columns of ash dozens of times since last Thursday, said Hadi Wijaya, the head of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.
While visiting the devastated areas, officials found craters where rocks fell during eruptions, up to 13m wide and 5m deep, in several places including a destroyed school.
The country’s volcano monitoring agency increased Lewotobi Laki Laki’s alert status to the highest level and more than doubled the exclusion zone to a 7km radius last week, prohibiting any activity in that area.
Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of a pair of stratovolcanoes in the East Nusa Tenggara province, known locally as the husband-and-wife mountains. “Laki laki” means man, while its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman.
Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.