Mt. Agung Bali’s Volcano
YOU can help more than you can possibly imagine, but not with money, please take a few minutes of your time with your social media to forward and post this and ask your friends and contacts to do the same to stop the devastation. Bali has experienced the worst disaster in it’s history since September of 2017 and the damage continues to destroy lives and families. People are losing their jobs en masse, Bali drivers are selling their cars to feed their families, businesses that have been around for years are closing. The disaster is not the volcano. The disaster is the way the world press took this story and mislead the world, by leaving out critical facts for sensational headlines.
Mt. Agung Bali’s Volcano has not caused a single fatality. It is so sad that there are not journalists out there who are interested in giving a complete story rather than going for cheap sensationalism. The resulting consequences have been far more devastating to the island than the volcano itself could have ever been. Please read on and help Bali through your social media to tell the truth? Keep reading.
Indonesia is in the Ring of Fire. *The Ring of Fire is a major area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and plate movements. It has 452 volcanoes (more than 75% of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes). Indonesia has more volcanoes than any other country with 130, 76 of which are active, which makes Indonesia a haven for Volcanologists and the most seismically monitored country on the planet. Since it is a natural part of life here people build for earthquakes and I’ve experienced magnitude 6.9 and 6.4 with epicenters within 6km that resulted in little to no damage.
Mt. Agung Bali’s Volcano is one of the most misreported events in recent memory. Now that you have some background lets look at the stories worldwide. Every article trots out the statistics on people who died the last time Mt. Agung erupted in 1963. 1000 seems to be the number of choice, but Wikipedia says 1584, it’s like no one even took the time to do basic research. This is 2017 and I have never seen a country more prepared than Indonesia.
There is an early warning system in place, technology today makes 1963 look like ancient times, but not a single publication addressed any of these most important facts. Since the first rumblings back in September the affected area was evacuated to centers that were set up by the government that was so well stocked they were refusing donations. We actually called and offered to bring water and rice and they said they had enough. Interviewed evacuees have said they are eating better at the centers then they did at home.
The government provided bus transportation to take tourists from the Bali airport to Surabaya. For only $22 or €18 so they could fly out from there. For the reported 10’s of thousands of stranded tourists, the actual inconvenience was minimal. They had a choice of taking a bus to Surabaya or waiting a day or 2 to fly out of Bali. All in all the airport was only closed on and off for a few days from the ash cloud. The airport has been closed longer from volcanoes on other islands in the not too distant past than it has been from Mt. Agung Bali’s Volcano.
Mt Rinjani on Lombok (a neighboring island) has erupted twice in the last few years and had more of an impact on airport closures than Mt. Agung without the support of the Bali government providing alternate transportation because it wasn’t Bali’s volcano. I had travelers that had to stay an extra 10 days to get out. Please keep in mind that nature is rarely consistent. It has been 54 years since the last eruption on Bali. But again the press did not see fit to bring any of this information to the public.
Now all this has been just about getting in and out of the airport. Let’s look at tourism safety in general. Mt. Agung Bali’s Volcano is in the far northeast corner. About as far away from the main tourist centers as one might get. The evacuation area was 6-10km and the major tourist areas are 51-80km from Mt. Agung.
Let’s look at ash cloud debris. Some reports claimed there were particles at the airport during the on and off closures. My open pool 2.7km from the airport did not have a single flake of ash. Our new location in Seraya less than 20km away from Mt Agung saw no ash either. The Indonesian government released statements that Bali was safe. Those statements went unpublished or buried under sensationalized headlines.
In closing, when a country experiences natural disasters people ask for money. We don’t want your money. All we ask, is you give a little of your time to post this to your social media. Forward the link to your contacts and ask them to do the same. We don’t seek to enrich ourselves. Only to help the people who can least afford to weather this disaster perpetrated on them by the media. Not mother nature. PLEASE Help us get the truth out.
