ON October 26, one day after Merapi first erupted, Yogyakarta’s governor, the 10th Sultan Hamengku Buwono climbed up the volcanic mountain and saw a scene he would never forget: a world covered in white ash, abandoned.

The devastation wrought by Mount Merapi has taken all the time and attention of the governor. Every day, he would drive around town, visiting one refugee center to another. “I didn’t dare go out of town for fear I would be