Merapi volcano toll rises to 259
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An official in charge of overseeing Indonesia's natural disaster mitigation efforts said on Monday that total deaths caused by the eruption of Merapi volcano in Central Java has reached 259 with numbers of refugees shrinks down.
That death toll figure came up since the volcano's eruption in Nov. 5. The official also said 174 people suffered from major injuries with 85 others in minor injuries due to the eruption.
Sutopo Purwonugroho, Director of the Disaster Risk Reduction at Indonesia's National Agency on Disaster Mitigation (BNPB) said that people in the refugee camps have started to return to their homes.
It was evident in the reducing number of refugees sheltered in 639 refugee camps in Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces.
"As of now we learned that the refugees in the refugee camps have decreased to 367,548 people from 399,403 recorded on Sunday," Sutopo told Xinhua.
According to Sutopo, the reducing number of refugees was following the reduction of risk area announced by the authorities recently. He said that the risk area in the most affected areas in Magelang and Klaten regencies, were reduced from 20 to 15 kilometers and from 20 to 10 kilometers from the volcano's crater respectively.
