Dangerously hot air

摘要

Even in a country as used to natural disasters as Indonesia, the chaos and the loss of life wreaked by the eruption of Mount Merapi has caused shock. For two weeks Merapi, Indonesia's most active volcano, has been spewing forth its contents. About 320,000 people have been forced from their homes on the lower slopes of the volcano and in the surround- ing countryside. On November 10th the official death toll stood at 191. The ash cloud is now so big that airlines have been cancelling flights in and out of the capital, Jakarta, 450km (280 miles) to the north-west.