IN seconds, minutes, and hours, and within days and nights, the calamity rages from the summit of Merapi. The eruption is like the angry shouts of gods who overturn the cycle of life in a second.

More than 100 people have perished, thousands are injured. The rivers flow black water as though cursed in a witchcraft story. The valleys become faded and pale, the blue forests which used to wind around the slopes of Merapi are bone-dry from the volca