Bali volcano: Stranded Australian tourists arrive home after volcano threat ‘decreases’

AUSTRALIAN tourists to Bali have been grounded once again after a shift in the wind pushed the ash cloud from the Mt Agung volcano back towards Denpasar airport.

Australian Jake Vidler 21 (R) and his brother Ben Viddlet from Nelson Bay stranded in Bali Airport after their Jetstar flight was canceled last night caused by Mount Agung eruption. Jake should go for work on monday and he possibly lost his job as a house builder after as Jetstar put them on Wednesday flight. Picture: Lukman S Bintoro

AUSTRALIAN tourists have found themselves stuck at the airport once again as Jetstar announced on Friday it is cancelling flights to and from Bali following a change in wind direction.

“There has been a sudden change in today’s forecast for this evening in Bali,” the airline announced on its travel alerts page. “As a result, some of our flights out of Bali planned for today have been cancelled.” The airline said it would be contacting affected customers and will rebook flights once it’s safe to resume flying. Jetstar said they would also not be flying to the holiday destination from Australia due to the “unpredictability of volcanic activity”. They are advising travellers to consider changing their destination, travel dates or cancel their trip. Three Virgin Australia “recovery” flights from Bali set for Friday are still scheduled to go ahead, but none of the airlines are taking passengers to the popular holiday spot due to the risk of further volcanic activity and disruptions. The news comes after thousands of Australians who had been stranded in Bali due to volcanic activity were able to fly home yesterday. Denpasar Airport reopened on Wednesday after the cloud from the Mount Agung eruption cleared, allowing major airlines to resume flights. “Volcanic activity and ash cloud are unpredictable and flights may be cancelled at short notice,” a Jetstar spokeswoman said in a statement on Thursday evening. The first of the flights back to Australia arrived in Perth on Thursday afternoon and subsequent services landed in Melbourne and Sydney in the evening. Many endured an uncomfortable end to their holidays, with WA man Phil Wickham describing “cold, wet” nights spent sleeping at the airport. “It also gets really hot and steamy. It’s not pleasant,” he said. “We are going to constantly monitor the situation on the ground,” Ngurah Rai airport spokesman Arie Ahsanurrohim told AFP. Australian tourist Ebra Syllivan was overjoyed at the prospect of getting back home. “I didn’t know it was going to reopen today — we just came here because our flight was (originally scheduled for) tonight and we’ve booked out of our motel,” she said at the airport. “It’s fabulous because we need to get back. We’ve got to get back to work.” The ash cloud wreaked havoc with the travel plans of thousands of tourists. Not that the cancellations were worrying some Australians. On the other side of Bali, at Sanur beach, the distant crackle of lightning and an afternoon rain shower were the only annoyances for tourists lounging on sun beds and sipping cocktails. For them, the airport’s closure means an extended holiday. “What’s to be annoyed about, getting stuck here,” said Simon Allan, whose flight to Perth had been cancelled because of the ash cloud. “We have no control of nature and we’ll just go with the moment and see what happens tomorrow,” his partner Deborah Flynn told AAP. The Ngurah Rai airport’s communications and legal division head, Ari Ahsanurrohim, said a meeting of the airport’s emergency operations centre decided the airport would reopen. It ended three days of chaos at the airport after its closure, which left up to 150,000 travellers stranded. Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin flights to and from Bali had been cancelled due to the ash cloud. Passengers were given the option of flying to other destinations including Phuket, Singapore, Fiji or Tokyo. Australian travel insurance companies also warned customers would only be covered if they bought policies up to nine weeks ago — before warnings were issued by the Indonesian government. Tens of thousands had already fled their homes around the volcano — which last erupted in 1963, killing around 1600 people — but as many as 100,000 will likely be forced to leave in case of a full eruption, disaster agency officials have said. Experts said Agung’s recent activity matches the build-up to the earlier disaster, which ejected enough debris — about a billion tonnes — to lower global average temperatures by around 0.3 degrees Celsius for roughly a year. “Small eruptions have been happening continuously but there’s still the possibility of a bigger, explosive eruption,” said I Gede Suantika, a senior volcanologist at Indonesia’s volcanology agency. “Activity remains high and we are still on the highest alert level.” Roadside signs that read “Volcanic danger zone. No entry!” underscored the potential risks of staying behind. There is a 10 kilometre exclusion zone around Agung, which is 75 kilometres from the beachside tourist hub of Kuta. Around 440 flights had been cancelled since the start of the week. The airport on nearby Lombok island — also a popular tourist destination — had opened and closed several times in the past few days. It is currently open. Some 100 buses were still taking visitors to several destinations including Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya on Java island — 13 hours’ drive and a ferry ride away — and the capital Jakarta, as torrential rain lashed the island. “We decided to take the bus because in this island we are very nervous and we want to stay in another island, we want to be in Java,” said Sofia Maria, a 24-year-old Russian tourist on her way to Jakarta. The majority of Bali’s tourists are Chinese, followed by Australians, Indians, Britons and Japanese, according to the immigration office, which added that nearly 25,000 foreigners live on the small Hindu-dominated island. Foreigners whose visitor visas are expiring will be given a special permit to stay longer due to the eruption, the agency said. Agung rumbled back to life in September, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people living nearby. Its activity decreased in late October and many returned to their homes. However, over the weekend, the mountain sent smoke into the air for the second time in a week in what volcanologists call a phreatic eruption — caused by the heating and expansion of groundwater. So-called cold lava flows have also appeared — similar to mud flows and often a prelude to the blazing orange lava of popular imagination. Indonesia, the world’s most active volcanic region, lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic and seismic activities. Last year seven people were killed after Mount Sinabung on the western island of Sumatra erupted. A 2014 eruption at Sinabung killed 16. Indonesian geological services had said thermal imaging indicated a large volume of magma is just beneath the volcano’s surface. “Plumes of smoke are occasionally accompanied by explosive eruptions and the sound of weak blasts that can be heard up to 12km from the peak,” the Disaster Mitigation Agency said in a statement after earlier raising the alert from three to its highest level of four. “The potential for a larger eruption is imminent,” it said, referring to a visible glow of magma at Mount Agung’s peak overnight and warning residents to evacuate a danger zone at a radius of 8-10km. Authorities had searched the danger zone to ensure all residents have complied with the evacuation order. RELATED: What Mount Agung looks like inside

Originally published as Bali volcano: Stranded Australian tourists arrive home after volcano threat ‘decreases’