communities and huge ash being seen in the sky. now new concern for residents who fear a much bigger explosion could be on the way just as tom described there. cnn s gallagher joining me now. frank was symptomatic of a lot of people on the island. they ve been dealing with this but not to that extent. they feel perhaps it s not going to affect them. authorities, however, would like them to get over that relaxed feeling and really take heed of these warnings, because the key here is it s unpredictable. exploding through the earth. this weekend three new vents spewing lava up into the air like a fountain. this is the first time in my life it scared me to death. reporter: an eruption at this
at bally s biggest temple on the slopes of mount where shippers with face masks at the ready to protect them from the fumes and ash being spewed out by the volcano. the island of bali is indonesia s top tourist destination the visitor trade has been hit hard by the travel destruction which forced the airport to close for two days the run up to christmas and new year is normally high season not this year. some guests cancelled when most again began erupting but the worst came after the airport closed almost ninety percent of the guests cancelled their bookings. for those who reached bali the volcano is a spectacle in itself. kind of excited. exciting like i ve never seen something like this before. but it s fun it s fun to see. not quite so much fun for the forty thousand local people evacuated from their
ash being reflected. it was showing up in yellow as well as orange. right now we re not seeing that. that right there is actually an old image. so things a lot better. the ash plume not visible. but we still have to wait from the vacc to confirm whether or not the volcano has stopped erupting. we re seeing some steam there, a sign of good things. as we take you back to the weather graphics, we want to point out where the volcano is the area in red is the warning area, for the surface, up to 20,000 feet. that s important because that s where planes take off. now the area a little bit higher up, 35,000 to 55,000 feet, that s where planes generally fly. of course now say if you were on a trans-atlantic flight, coming from england, going over towards the u.s., you would typically fly to the south of greenland so it looks like you ll be able to avoid the ash plume. that s good news, but still we re talking about problem, that includes parts of germany,
had well, i think the ash that s gone to europe will decline because there is much ash being produced at the volcano at the moment. this is not something you can guarantee? the science of predicting volcanos cannot be guaranteed? no, i have no control over volcanos. i m making assessments on how volcanos behave generally. it is likely we have seen the peak of activity. now it s on a declining trend. is it fair to say that it s likely the worst is over? it is likely, but we cannot know for sure. is there in way to put a percentage on it? no, it s impossible. real really, we just have to make do with that. thank you very much. i know you re flying up there again shortly. yes. we look forward to talking with you when you come back. okay. one of the things, you know, that you ve heard so much on tv, t.j., is people in london and people in iceland and people in the united states giving