Convincing local residents to evacuate is a problem frequently faced by Indonesian disaster management authorities when a volcano is about to erupt.

Some residents stubbornly refuse to leave the danger zone because they are worried about their livestock. Others fiercely insist on staying in their villages because they want to take care of their plantations and worry that their houses might be looted.

In some cases, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho warned, failure to evacuate has proved fatal.

He recalled how scores of villagers were killed by the eruption of Mt. Merapi in Central Java Province some years ago after refusing to evacuate over concerns for their cattle.

"In Indonesian culture, people have special relationship with their cattle," the senior government official said.

Such an experience then becomes a reference for the government to deal with people in other impending volcanic disasters, including with villagers living on the slopes of Mt. Agung, on Bali island, amid signs of an imminent eruption.

Last Friday, the Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Agency raised the status of Mt. Agung to the highest level and recommended that people keep away, while on Tuesday, the Mt. Agung Observatory said the volcano "is exhibiting heightened unrest with increased likelihood of eruption."

As of noon Tuesday, a total of 75,673 residents living within the "red zone" -- a radius of 9 kilometers from the peak and 12 km from the peak in certain parts of the volcano's slopes -- had been evacuated.

Uniquely, the number of evacuees declines in the daytime and goes up again at night.

"In the daytime, many return to their villages to feed their cattle and check their plantations. At night, they return to their temporary shelters," Sutopo said.

Komang Kantun, 42, is among those who return home in the daytime.

"Two days ago, I returned home to check," Kantun told Kyodo News from a sport stadium in Semarapura, one of the biggest concentrations of evacuees, in Bali's Klungkung Regency, where he is sheltering with his family.

His house is located in the village of Sebudi, only about 6 km from the crater, inside the danger zone. But he had to put aside his fears of possible eruption for the sake of his family's assets, although tectonic and volcanic earthquakes are getting more frequent every day.

Villagers in Sebudi were the first to be evacuated after Mt. Agung's status was raised to top alert because it was the closest to the volcano.

Kantun's elderly neighbor Ketut Purna refused to evacuate his five grandchildren.

"They have bicycles and when Mt. Agung erupts, they can run away very fast, racing with the hot clouds," the man in his 90s said with a smile.

Purna himself was reluctant to evacuate and his children had to force him. In his opinion, the volcano "will not erupt in the near future because only tremors occur and no white smoke or flame of fires has been seen like in 1964."

The 3,142-meter volcano last erupted in 1964, killing about 200 people. Its 1963 eruption killed 1,549 people with an additional 200 later killed by the flow of cold lava caused by heavy rains.

Purna witnessed those two eruptions, in which his father and three nephews were killed by being buried by lahar, a type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris, and water.

Sutopo, however, has seen that despite a few stubborn villagers, many decided to evacuate by themselves and did not depend on the government's assistance during the first days of their stay in temporary shelters.

During the process of evacuation, he was astonished by the spirit of generosity showed by unaffected villages outside the danger zone, likening what they did to what Japanese people are known to do in cases of natural disasters.

"They lent their land for the evacuees' cattle with about 2,000 cows having been accommodated, so the latter don't need to risk their lives, returning home to feed their cattle," Sutopo said. "Some opened their houses to accommodate evacuees and cooked food for them."

For most Balinese Hindus, Mt. Agung is the most sacred mountain that provides them life.

They believe the volcano does not erupt without good reason and after it does, people living on its slopes return home to till their land which has become more fertile as a result.

"And when someone is killed during the eruption, it is a kind of sign from Gods to follow them," Purna said, giving his own reason why he prefers to stay at his village even though an eruption is imminent.