NU volunteers deployed to help refugees

Malang, NU Online
NU volunteers (Relanu) formed by the Institute of Disaster Management and Climate Change (LPBI) of NU Malang, East Java, have till now remained helping refugees and victims due to the Mount Kelud eruption.<>

According to Zainuddin, a NU volunteer, explained, there had been many refugees still staying in crowded shelters for still needing assistance in the form of food and clothing and so on. 

"Thank God, many people, including the local administration have given the large amounts of aid to us to be then distributed to the refugees," he said.

He added that in dealing with refugees, the NU volunteers facilitated the delivery of aid to the community. 

"Because we think that people who are in difficulties should not be troubled only because of procedural problems," he told NU Online here on Tuesday (25/2).

For the sake of efficiency and to facilitate the aid distribution, the NU volunteers have not just waited for the victims, but have also come to the residents from door to door.

"In addition to receiving their arrival, We also went from door to door, houses or other places occupied by the refugees. It is also intended for efficiency and to anticipate the possibility of refugees who have not recorded by the government," Zainuddin said.

NU online's reporter during his visit to Pujon subdistrict, saw  many Mt. Kelud-affected refugees are from Ngantang, not a few of them are housed in rather hidden places and also in small Islamic boarding schools located in remore areas.

As reported, thousands of people were reported to have fled their homes in the East Java district of Kediri when Mount Kelud erupted late on Thursday night.

The eruption shot a column of smoke 10 kilometers into the atmosphere, according to Surono, the former head of the Volcanology and Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG), as quoted by Viva.co.id, and sent gravel raining down as far as 50 kilometers from the crater of the volcano.

The eruption at 10:50 p.m. was preceded by a seismic earthquake was felt as far away as the Central Java town of Solo, the Jakarta Globe’s Ari Susanto reported, and heard as far away as Yogyakarta, 200 kilometers away, according to Tempo.co.

Experts had warned that any eruption would be particularly explosive, given how quickly the volcanic activity had escalated at Kelud since Feb. 2. The eruption occurred less than two hours after authorities raised the alert to the highest level on the four-point scale, although residents had already begun evacuating since Thursday afternoon, MetroTVNews.com reported.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), told Republika.co.id that “thousands” of people had left the area and evacuation efforts were still ongoing.

He said authorities had imposed a 10-kilometer exclusion radius around the crater, double the five kilometers established earlier this week.

Supeno, the head of the East Java office of the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), told Viva.co.id that there were no reports yet of casualties as a result of the eruption, and that his office was focused on getting everyone out of the 10-kilometer exclusion radius.

Editing by Sudarto Murtaufiq