Anak Krakatau Eruption: 1.7 Lakh Fliers Stranded As Indonesia Shuts Eight Major Airports
Volcanic eruption strands Indonesian air fliers.
About 170,000 passengers were left stranded after Indonesia shuttered its main international airport and seven others, canceling more than 1,500 flights following an eruption of Mount Anak Krakatoa that sent volcanic ash and lava spewing into the surrounding airspace. The eruption, which began early Sunday, prompted authorities to suspend operations at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport near Jakarta and several regional airports across western Indonesia as ash drifted over the capital and nearby cities.
Indonesia's geology agency said Mount Anak Krakatoa erupted on Saturday, producing a fountain of lava and booming sounds that could be heard hundreds of kilometers away, with two additional eruptions recorded on Sunday. The volcano, whose name means "Child of Krakatoa," sits in the Sunda Strait separating the islands of Java and Sumatra and emerged from the sea in the 1920s within the caldera left by the catastrophic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, one of the deadliest volcanic events in recorded history. Ash from the eruption was detected in the airspace surrounding Soekarno-Hatta, more than 150 kilometers from the volcano, prompting the transportation ministry to order a suspension of flight operations there and at seven other airports, including Husein Sastranegara in Bandung and Radin Inten II near Bandar Lampung on Sumatra.
Officials said the closures affected a combined 1,558 flights, including more than 900 services to and from Soekarno-Hatta alone. The airport authority initially ordered operations halted until midnight but later extended the suspension to 8:59 a.m. local time Monday "due to increased eruptive activity at Mount Anak Krakatoa," according to a statement posted on the airport's Instagram account. Indonesia's Directorate General of Civil Aviation said it was closely monitoring the eruption's impact on air travel and coordinating with meteorological agencies to determine when it would be safe to resume flights.
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The disruption left thousands of travelers, including many foreign tourists, stuck at terminals with little information about rebooking or refunds. "It's of course an inconvenience," said Diego Urdiales, a Spanish tourist who had been scheduled to fly home to Madrid, adding that he had received no updates from his airline. Other passengers expressed resignation over the disruption. "It's a natural disaster, it's a force majeure, so, what can we do?" said Michele Gouw, an Indonesian traveler affected by the cancellations. "We just have to accept it and wait for the airline and airport directions." Jakarta authorities also announced that schools across the capital would shift to online classes as a precaution against ash exposure, though officials did not specify how long the measure would remain in place.
Authorities also issued warnings for maritime traffic, asking ships passing through the Sunda Strait to exercise increased vigilance due to volcanic activity and barring vessels from approaching within a three-kilometer exclusion zone around the volcano. Anak Krakatoa has erupted periodically in the decades since its formation, most notably in 2018, when a partial collapse of its crater triggered a tsunami that killed more than 400 people along the coasts of Java and Sumatra. Indonesian officials have not issued new predictions about further eruptions but said they would continue monitoring the volcano's activity as authorities work to reopen the affected airports and resume normal flight operations.
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