Thai Airways International cancelled flights to Jakarta on Monday as eight Indonesian airports, including two serving the Indonesian capital, remained closed because of ash from erupting Krakatau volcano.
The Thai flag carrier announced the cancellation of flight TG433 leaving Bangkok for Jakarta at 8am and the return leg, TG434, departing the Indonesian capital at 12.35pm.
THAI cited flight and passenger safety for the decision due to ash over Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, the main airport serving Jakarta, it added. (continues below)
Ash from Anak Krakatau, aka Krakatoa, which sits halfway between Java and Sumatra islands, has blanketed Jakarta and several surrounding areas since it ?erupted late on ?Friday, leading to the closure of the airports for safety reasons.
The Transport Ministry said 170,000 people have been affected by flight cancellations.
Jakarta’s main airport will closed until 6pm local time, its operators said on Monday on Instagram.
“We cannot ascertain when this will end due to the dynamic weather,” Indonesian Transport Minister Dudy ?Purwagandhi said in a statement on Monday, adding that the seven other airports, which included the ones serving Jakarta’s nearby provinces of Lampung and West Java, would remain closed until at least 8.59am.
The volcano monitoring agency’s website showed the most recent eruption occurred on Sunday at 8.23pm.
The agency warned on Monday that “the probability of further eruptions in the coming periods remains high”.
The ?eruptions seen ash reach as high as 6,000 metres on the Java side of the volcano and 15,000 ?metres ?on the Sumatra side and some parts of Banten province in Java, meteorological agency BMKG posted on its website.
On Sunday, ?the disaster agency called for people to wear masks while travelling outdoors to avoid breathing in the ash. In Jakarta and Lampung, schools will use remote learning to counter health risks for ?students, state news agency Antara reported.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of ?Fire”, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent.
Anak Krakatau, which means child of Krakatau, began emerging a century ago from the area previously occupied by Krakatau, then known as Krakatoa. The older destroyed itself ?in mass eruptions in 1883, which killed ?more than 36,000 people in a series of tsunamis.