Malaysia has moved to airlift hundreds of its nationals
from Indonesia as Mount Merapi volcano continues its massive eruption.
It sent three C-130 transport aircraft to Solo airport to
collect 664 stranded Malaysians, many of them students.
Some airlines have stopped flying to Jakarta over fears
of ash damage.
On a visit to refugees from the eruption, Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said there was no sign of the eruption
abating.
Speaking at a stadium in Yogyakarta province, he said
283,000 people had now been forced to flee.
More than 130 people have died since Merapi began
erupting two weeks ago, its greatest activity in a century.
Victims were being given a mass burial in Yogyakarta on
Sunday.
As relatives wept and men recited traditional Islamic
prayers, villagers and policemen unloaded the corpses – some in plain wooden
coffins, others still in the morgue’s yellow body bags – from ambulances, an
Associated Press correspondent reports.
They were placed in a massive trench, dug into a large
green field in the shadow of the volcano.
The infamously volatile mountain unleashed its most
powerful eruption on Friday, sending hot clouds of gas, rocks and debris down
its slopes at frightening speeds, smothering entire villages and leaving a
trail of charred corpses.
The first Malaysian evacuees were flown out of Solo on
Sunday with others due to be collected on Monday.
Solo is about 30km (20 miles) from the volcano.
Jakarta airport official Frans Yosef told AFP news agency
that eight international flights to Jakarta were cancelled on Sunday and 42
rescheduled.
Internal flights to Yogyakarta, Solo and Bandung – all
cities close to Merapi in the centre of the main island of Java – were also
disrupted.
Frustration among air travellers was growing, the agency
reports.
“We called three airlines but all the seats were
booked,” said Singapore resident Raymond Yong, 34, whose Lufthansa flight
home from Jakarta was cancelled.
“I don’t understand why the airlines have to cancel
flights when there are others which are operating just fine. I have to work
tomorrow and this is such a major inconvenience.”
US President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive in
Jakarta on 9 November for a long-expected visit. White House officials said on
Saturday there was no sign so far of any disruption to his schedule.
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