MOUNT MERAPI – International airlines fearful of volcanic ash canceled flights yesterday into Indonesia’s capital, while the closure of airports nearest Mount Merapi has delayed the arrival of burn cream and ventilators for those whose skin and lungs were singed by searing gases. The series of eruptions, including the deadliest in decades, has killed 138 people.
In the area’s only burn unit, one patient lies mummified in thick, white bandages from neck to toe, his face a patchwork of black and ashen splotches. He never blinks his milky gray eyes. The only sign of life is the shallow rising and falling of his chest.
He has little company: Of the 31 burn victims taken to Sardjito hospital, at the foot of the volcano, the burn unit has room for just nine. Of those, only eight get a ventilator.
With nearby airports closed because of poor visibility, hospital officials said lots of supplies – including burn cream, oxygen masks and saline solution for IVs – were stuck in Jakarta. Dr. Ishandono Dahlan said he needed at least four more ventilators to protect the delicate, inflamed lung tissue of patients from the ash hanging in the air. In the meantime, nursing students were pumping emergency respirators – normally only used in short ambulance trips – by hand.
Indonesia’s most volatile mountain unleashed nearly two billion cubic feet (50 million cubic meters) of gas, rocks and ash Friday that raced down its slopes at highway speeds, mowing down a slope-side village and leaving a trail of charred corpses in its path. Photos taken by a disaster management team afterward showed bodies frozen in their last moments, covered in a thick charcoal-like ash. Several showed bodies welded together, as mothers and fathers clutched their children. (AP)
