Snow at home vs. Volcanic ash in Indonesia

Dear Mother Nature - this is NOT what I had in mind when I told you I was disappointed that I missed the snowstorm back home in North Carolina.

This morning I was awoken around 5:30am by my Indonesian cell phone SMS alerts going off.  Last night around 11pm a large volcano (Mount Kelud) erupted here on the island of Java.  It's about 150 miles East of Jogja and is one of 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia.  Indonesia is prone to volcanic eruptions (& earthquakes, but let's not talk about that for now...) due to its location in the "Ring of Fire" - a grouping of fault lines that stretch from the Western Hemisphere throughout Southeast Asia. 

After I woke up, I realized that the sky was still dark.  Here in Jogja the sun typically rises very early and it's fully bright by 5:15am.  Today, however, was a completely different story.  The streetlights were hazy with ash and daylight didn't come until 7am or so.   The sky is white like snow and the sun is gone.

When daylight appeared, we found that volcanic ash was still raining down, even this far away from the eruption.  Everything is covered with about 1/4" of ash.  IBM security has been closely monitoring the situation and has sequestered us in the hotel until further notice. 

The view of Yogyakarta from the top floor of our hotel

The view of the rooftops out my hotel window

At first glance this looks like a dusting of snow, but it's definitely not!

Our hotel pool is filled with ash and I would guess it's closed until further notice.  At least we were able to get some nice swimming days in before this all happened.  I suspect the pools will have to be drained.

The hotel gave us some basic masks, and our local contact is trying to find some more advanced particulate filter masks (N95 masks) for us in case we venture outside.  I don't see any of us venturing out though!   Breathing in volcanic dust can be bad for one's health so we are sheltering ourselves and trying not to get exposed to it.

Me, Rosa, Claudia & Antonella donning our masks

The volcanic ash has stopped falling from the sky but we're staying in our rooms as much as possible.  As a precaution, I have put towels under my door as the corridor outside my room is partially open to the outside. 

We all feel safe but our thoughts drift to the safety of others further East.  Thousands of people within a 10km radius of the volcano have been evacuated.  To see this much ash 150 miles away is amazing.  One can only wonder what it looks like closer to the eruption.  The airports in Jogja, Solo, and Surabaya are closed,  all of the local schools are closed, and the one-bustling streets are eerily almost deserted.  It looks like a massive snowstorm has hit the area and as I look out my hotel room all I can see is white & gray. 

The street outside our hotel covered in ash

The windowsill outside my room

Cars have difficulty driving through the big ash clouds

We were originally scheduled to travel East tomorrow for a day trip closer to the coast but those plans have been put on hold until the situation resolves - hopefully we'll be able to reschedule to next weekend.  One of the local IBMers in the area who was here in Jogja for the eruption of Mount Merapi in 2011 told us that it could take up to a week for the air to clear.  We're hunkered down here for a while in the hotel hoping for some rain to clear the air.  When we first came for our CSC assignment we were told to "be flexible" - we weren't quite thinking this flexible but it all comes as part of the experience.  All is safe here and we are being well taken care of. 


Here is an article about the eruption on CNN.