What Happened When I Woke up This Morning Seems Impossible… Scary

By Nico @atravellersday

This was not a normal Valentines Day. When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was as if the color had been sucked out of the world. Everything was covered in a fine layer of gray dust, that coated every surface and hung in the air as the cars sped by.

Overnight Mount Kelud, located 300 km away, had erupted covering much of Central Java in a thing layer of volcanic  ash. It was hard to believe what I was seeing.

The volcano that did this – Mount Kelud – is 300km away fromYogyakarta. There’s an even more active volcano just 20km away.

Visibility was down to less than five meters, giving the world a strange post apocalyptic feel.

While some people think disaster, others see an opportunity. This person was on the street all morning selling face masks.

Woman struggles with her bike through the ash.

Traffic kicks up ash as people commute to work.

Becak driver struggles to find passengers.

I can understand why my friends four-year old child thought it was snowing. The city is covered in volcanic ash.

Volcanic eruption: yet another reason to own an umbrella.