Indonesia warns airlines over active volcano
Jakarta, May 24: The Indonesian Transport Ministry has issued a warning to airliners alerting them about volcanic ash from the country's most active Merapi volcano in Java island, ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said on Thursday.
The warning was issued at 3.56 a.m. on Thursday by the AirNav Indonesia, Xinhua news agency reported quoting the spokesman as saying. "The airliners are advised to be cautious about the volcanic ash," he said.
A further evaluation would be undertaken after the issuance of the advice, said Bambang.
Mount Merapi, located at the borders of Central Java province and Yogyakarta province, erupted earlier on Thursday with an ash column spewed as high as 6,000 metres into the sky.
Residents in the affected areas have been advised to use masks, the National Volcanology Agency said. Mount Merapi, the most active one of Indonesia's 129 active volcanoes, has regularly erupted since 1948.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
