BALI – Thousands of tourists are stranded on the island of Bali, with their eyes turned to the sky, where the Agung volcano is projecting its energy in the form of ash and smoke. The crater is filling up with lava and the eruption is feared. According to the National Office for Disaster Management: “lava will certainly flow down the slopes of the volcano”.

The local authorities have proclaimed the highest level of alert available and have closed the airports, in spite of the forecasts that showed optimism about the evolution of eruptive activity resumed last Tuesday after a calm that had lasted since 1963.

Now it is feared that the phenomenon can degenerate. The forbidden area around the volcano, which is 75 kilometers from the tourist resort of Kuta, has been extended to ten kilometers and the inhabitants who live in this area have been asked to evacuate: 100 thousand people have had to leave their own houses since Mount Agung started to smoke. “The continuous projections of ashes are sometimes accompanied by explosions and a low muttering,” the national office for the management of disasters said, adding that “the light of the fire is becoming more visible at night, indicating that the conditions for stronger eruptions are imminent “.

Thousands of protective masks have been distributed to the inhabitants. Denpasar International Airport, capital of the province of Bali, a world-class tourist attraction with millions of visitors each year, has been closed, causing a halt to the travel of tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of flights canceled. The authorities have announced that they have made available a hundred buses to load passengers waiting at the island’s international airport and transport them to the ferries with which they will be able to reach the island of Java and from there take off home.

Even the Lombok Island airport, which is also a popular tourist destination east of Bali, closed on Sunday afternoon because the wind was pushing the ashes in its direction, but it was then reopened Monday morning. The Agung volcano, whose mouth is located just over 3,000 meters above sea level, had already begun to show the first signs of life in August. But in October it seemed to have subsided. When it erupted in 1963 Agung caused about 1,600 deaths.