Sleman, Yogyakarta — Although three months have passed since the
recent devastating eruptions of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi, most of the
temporary shelters the government promised to build for displaced
victims are not
yet ready for occupation, according to a local official.

"Many of the shelters that have been built cannot yet be occupied due
to problems related to the supporting infrastructure," Sleman District
Chief Sri Purnomo told reporters when he accompanied Yogyakarta
Governor Sri
Sultan Hamengkubowono X on a visit to shelters at Banjarsari,
Glagaharjo and Cangkringan, on Saturday.Through Feb. 15, the official
said, 1,651 shelter units had been built, or 65 percent of the total of
2,613 units to be built. Only 657 shelters are occupied.

Purnomo said that the problems with the shelters include lack of
electricity and clean water facilities. The electric grid has not
reached the areas where the shelters are built due to a lack of power
lines, he said.

In addition, many shelters do not have clean water because they are at
a high elevation, making the digging of deep wells problematic. They
are also far from existing water supplies.

Sanitation facilities and drainage pipes also have not yet been
constructed and rain water floods many areas where the shelters are
located.

Besides those technical problems, Purnomo said, there has been
resistance from some villagers who only want to move with their
neighbors from destroyed villages.

Mount Merapi, among the world’s most active volcanoes, erupted
violently from Oct. 26 through mid November 2010, killing 354 people
and displacing hundreds of thousands from the slopes of the mountain.