Even as Indonesia is evacuating residents from the islands of Bali and Vanuata, as two volcanoes in the region have been rumbling and threatening to erupt, three priests climbed to the top of Mount Agung in Bali to make an offering and prove volcanologists wrong.
Jero Mangku Ada, one of the priests who climbed the Mount Agung amid eruption warnings, told Fairfax media that "god spoke to him" while he was living in one of the evacuation centres. "I was requested to make an offering and I did just that because I want the people of Bali to be safe. If I was not told to go up there by something higher up than the government I would not have gone up there."
Another Hindu priest Mangku Mokoh said that he did not really believe that Mount Agung was going to erupt. "I'm not sure that Mount Agung will erupt," the Telegraph quoted him as saying.
While they may be making news for this, Indonesian authorities have slammed their decision and said that they were being irresponsible and giving the wrong impression. They feared that this may even inspire other people to scale the summit at a time when the mountain may erupt any moment.
While the three priests have clearly grabbed the limelight thanks to their daredevilry, a few days ago another priest claimed that Mount Agung had become active due to tourists having sex on the mountain. The spot is popular with them as it makes for a good hiking destination.
According to the priest, Mount Agung is angry about people having sex and menstruating on it. "The climbers did that," Fairfax media quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, volcanologists have said that it could only be a matter of hours or days for the volcano at the Mount Agung to erupt as irregular lava movement has been noticed inside the mountain. Mount Agung had not witnessed any seismic activity in the last few years, but last week, over 700 incidents were recorded in just one day and the strongest tremor was measured at 4.3 on the Richter scale.
"More than 700 earthquakes per day is already very high. If the number is increasing, it will create continued tremors. Then it may be a matter of hours before the eruption," Channel News Asia quoted Dr Devy Kamil Syahbana from the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation as saying.
Not just the tremors seismologists have also said that Mt Agung has inflated in the last few weeks and cracks on it have been emitting white smoke that is gradually increasing.
