Lives on hold: Balinese grandmother awaits Mount Agung eruption

Fearing the worst, many villagers such as Nyoman Gerti take refuge in relief centres set up amid the threat of a volcanic eruption, but able-bodied men stay back to secure their valuable livestock

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Nyoman Gerti, third from left, 52, and her family have found refuge in Gianyar, approximately 62km from Mount Agung in Bali, Indonesia. Photo: Karim Raslan

Published: 2:45pm, 4 Oct 2017Updated: 2:47pm, 6 Oct 2017

The last time Bali’s Mount Agung erupted in 1963, more than 1,700 people died. Pyroclastic flows, a fast-moving mixture of gas and volcanic matter, devastated the Indonesian villages around the sacred mountain. The only place spared was the Mother Temple of Besakih, which the lava missed by metres.

Since September 21, fears of a similar catastrophe have gripped the island, causing panicked villagers to flee. Nearly 150,000 evacuees are scattered across 471 relief centres.

On October 1, the Ceritalah team travelled to the outskirts of Gianyar (approximately 62km from Mount Agung) to visit a privately funded relief centre close to the town’s football stadium. There, sitting on the steps of a community-hall-turned-refugee-camp, we met Nyoman Gerti, a 52-year-old grandmother of five from the village of Ababi on the slopes of Mount Agung.

Children play at an evacuation site near Mount Agung. Photo: AP

Plump and lively, she told us: “On September 21, we felt the first quake in the middle of the night. I woke up and grabbed the grandchildren. There was chaos. Everyone ran out of their homes.

“The people who remembered the 1963 eruption told us to keep away from rivers, to stay closer to higher ground to be safe. I refused to sleep in the house again.

“But the tremors kept on coming back –two or three times a day. I couldn’t sleep, concentrate or eat. So, two days later, we all moved here. I still worry about the house, but I can rest easier knowing we are far away from the volcano.”