At least 11 hikers have been found dead as rescuers worked through the night to find dozens stranded by the eruption of a volcano in western Indonesia, a local rescue official said Monday. Mount Merapi on the island of Sumatra, with a peak of 2,891 meters (9,484 feet), erupted Sunday, sending a tower of ash 3,000 meters into the sky and raining volcanic debris onto nearby villages.
The ash from the eruption covered cars and roads, blocking sunlight and making breathing difficult. A video online showed a frightened hiker begging her mother for help, her face covered in thick ash and her hair dripping with rain.
A local search and rescue agency spokesman, Jodi Haryawan, told AFP that 75 hikers had been trekking up Marapi when it erupted. Three of them were rescued on Monday. Another 12 remain missing. He said the search for them was suspended after a small eruption on Monday. “It is too dangerous if we continue searching now,” he said.
Authorities raised the alert for Marapi to its second-highest level, shut down two climbing routes, and prohibited residents from going within 1.8 miles of the volcano’s mouth because of potential lava flows. Officials warned that the lava could reach the village of Padang, where the climbers were based.
Several videos of the evacuated hikers were posted on social media. In one, a rescue worker with a flashlight strapped to his head piggybacks a terrified woman. She moans in pain and says, “It hurts so much.” Another shows a 19-year-old girl who calls her mother by name, asking her to come and rescue her. She appears shocked, her face burnt, and her hair smeared with thick grey ash.
Rescuers are battling to carry the injured and burned survivors down the mountain on foot. Rudy Rinaldi, the head of West Sumatra’s disaster mitigation agency, told AFP that some rescued hikers needed medical treatment, including for burn wounds.
A video online shows a frightened hiker pleading with her mother for help, her face covered in black ash and her hair dripping with water. Another clip shows a local search and rescue Agency spokesman, Jodi Haryawan, telling reporters that the search for the 12 climbers who remain missing had been suspended because of a small eruption on Monday. “It is too dangerous unless we have a helicopter,” he said.
Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation, is sprawled across the so-called Ring of Fire, where the collision of tectonic plates catalyzes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. More than 120 active volcanoes are located in the country of more than 20,000 islands. Thousands of people have died in recent years as a result of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Almost a fifth of the population lives in areas at risk from natural disasters. The country’s national disaster mitigation agency, BAKTI, has set up a task force to investigate the cause of the latest eruption and to warn the public not to climb the volcano.
