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History of Mount Agung
A mayor eruption in 1350 so fertilized the land around Besakih that year after year it has yielded enough rice to not only supply the needs of the complex but also defray the costs of the unending ceremonies staged in the mountain's honor. Agung's most recent eruption occurred in the closing years of the turbulent Sukarno regime, in 1963. The cataclysm began during the greatest of Balinese ceremonies, Eka Dasa Rudra, an exorcism of evil staged only once every 100 years. Except for minor activity in 1808 and 1843, this was the first time the sacred volcano had blown since 1350. Many people looked upon the disaster as a divine condemnation of the ill-fated Sukarno regime, and the subsequent failure of crops, uprooting of villages, and forced evacuation of 86,000 people contributed substantially to the communal clashes and massacres during the so-called purge of Indonesian "communists" in 1966. Because empty land for the evacuees was no longer available on Bali, the consequences of overpopulation became acute for the first time in the island's history. No longer could farmers move temporarily to another part of the island, later returning to a land covered in fresh, fertile ash. Thousands were instead resettled in transmigration camps in central Sulawesi. Few scars remain today. Until well into the 1970s the countryside northeast of Klungkung was blackened by lava streams, but the region is now replanted with fields and gardens. Remnants of the massive eruption are still visible in the Tianyar and Kubu areas on the northeast coast, the least populated region of Karangasem. Agung remains semi-active, and volcanologists in Rendang and Batulompeh continue to keep a wary eye on it. |
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