Mount Merapi volcano's eruption may come any moment now, but many villagers living on the volcano's slopes are refusing to leave their home. While some have earthy requirements like livestock to feed and fields to take care of, it is time not yet for Merapi eruption, feel some other residents.

The Indonesian Mount Merapi volcano is one of the world's most dangerous volcanoes, in terms of volcanic activity. Merapi has spewed lava and destruction scores of times in the last 200 years, the latest one as recently as 1994, when it killed 60 people. Experts say that the dome formed at the top of the Merapi volcano could collapse any moment, pumping out rocks, lava and ash.

After a decade of dormancy, the Mount Merapi volcano again started showing symptoms of an impending volcanic eruption, when lava started streaming down its crater. Merapi is also regularly spitting out huge chunks of ash and smoke, signaling the upcoming eruption.

The Indonesian government has ordered as evacuation, and several social service organizations are on standby. Though there is a 4-km exclusion zone around the volcano, some villagers who were in the relief camps last week have started returning to the Mount Merapi's slopes, where they have lived their entire lives.

Evacuation from the volcano has added complications, since those who have been living here for decades revere the "spirits" of Mount Merapi. The fact that the volcano's eruption killed about 1300 people in 1930 is lost on them. Mount Merapi even has a mystic priest who 'converses' with the spirits to keep its people from the harm's way.

While the less superstitious denizens of the volcano Mount Merapi say that animals start fleeing down the Merapi's slopes prior to an eruption, affording enough time for humans to make it safety, others say that before the eruption, clouds in the shape of sheep appear in the skies above Mount Merapi.

Vulcanologists say that the oscillating volcanic activity points to an upcoming eruption. The government has readies some evacuation camps and facilities, but is doubtful how effective they could be, since Merapi's residents are not keen on leaving their home. Though the evacuation order was declared last week, the government has not enforced its own order.

The intermittent spurt of ash, molten rocks and steam from the crater at the top of the volcano have kept observers on edge. An eruption of Mount Merapi in 1006 had covered the entire Java peninsula with ash.