Flights from Bali cancelled, thousands evacuated after Indonesia volcano eruption

JAKARTA: At least seven international flights from Indonesia's resort island Bali have been cancelled, an airport official said on Friday (Mar 21), after a volcano in the archipelago nation's east erupted, shooting dark ash 8km into the sky and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703m twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, erupted for 11 minutes and nine seconds late on Thursday, authorities said, raising the volcano's alert status to the highest level.

As of 9.45am local time on Friday, "seven international flights had been cancelled, six of them are Jetstar flights bound to Australia and one Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur", Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport spokesman, Andadina Dyah, said in a statement.

Several other flights - both domestic and international, including to Thailand, Singapore and Australia - have been delayed, it said.

Responding to queries from CNA on Friday, Singapore Airlines (SIA) and its subsidiary Scoot said that a total of eight of their flights to and from Bali had been retimed.

SIA and Scoot both apologised for the inconvenience caused by the flight delays and said that the safety of their customers and crew is their top priority.

Scoot added that it had also contacted affected customers to inform them of the changes to their flights.

SIA also advised its customers to visit its website for more information on the status of their flights as other SIA flights between Singapore and Denpasar may be affected by the eruption.

The local government has declared a 14-day emergency and established a command post to coordinate response efforts, the country's disaster agency spokesman (BNPB), Abdul Muhari, said in a statement on Friday.

Abdul added that more than 4,700 residents have been evacuated as of Friday and called on those remaining to find a safe location.

"The people are asked to remain in safe locations and follow directives from the regional government," Abdul said.

The local airport in Maumere, on Flores, the closest to the volcano, has not been affected by the ash, according to the transportation ministry.

"The ash column was observed grey to black with thick intensity," Indonesia's volcanology agency said in a statement about the eruption, which began at around 11pm on Thursday.

Volcanic ash from the eruption blanketed several nearby villages on Friday.

At least two people were injured, including a man whose roof collapsed under volcanic debris, a local official said.

The agency warned residents of the risk of volcanic mudflows due to heavy rainfall.

The long eruption prompted the country's geological agency to raise the volcano's alert level to the highest of the four-tiered system.

Authorities imposed an exclusion zone between seven and 8km around the volcano, the agency added.

In November, Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted multiple times, killing nine people, cancelling scores of international flights to the tourist island of Bali and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Laki-Laki, which means "man" in Indonesian, is twinned with a calmer volcano named after the Indonesian word for "woman".

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire".