Mount Merapi - A deadly Indonesian volcano spit out towering clouds of ash, but clear skies over the distant capital let international airlines resume flights on Thursday.
The official death toll from Mount Merapi has been raised to 194 to include deaths from respiratory problems, heart attacks and other illnesses related to the eruptions that started more than two weeks ago.
The notoriously unpredictable volcano in the heart of Java island roared back to life two weeks ago, spewing searing gases and ash almost daily. More than 350 000 people have been evacuated to cramped emergency shelters.
President Barack Obama, now in South Korea for the Group of 20 summit, sliced several hours off his brief visit to Indonesia and several international flights to Jakarta were cancelled on Wednesday over concerns about volcanic ash being carried by westerly winds.
On Thursday, ash spreading over western Java was falling just short of the capital, said Gordon Jackson, a meteorologist with the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in Darwin, Australia.
“Right now, all flights are operating normally,” said Frans Yosef, the manager at Jakarta's main international airport. Jakarta is about 450km from Merapi.
Even so, the US State Department urged travellers to stay clear of Mount Merapi, which has erupted many times in the last century, killing more than 1 400 people.
The National Disaster Management Agency said on Thursday the death toll since the first eruption on October 26 had climbed to 194 - three quarters from searing heat blasts during the biggest eruptions.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific Ocean. - Sapa-AP