Hikers caught by volcanic eruption
Hikers suffering burns and covered in ash have been rescued from a volcano in Indonesia after an eruption that killed at least 11 people and injured dozens more.
Forty rescuers are looking for survivors and bodies on the slopes of Mt Marapi, on the western island of Sumatra, after a sudden and violent eruption on Sunday.
Videos show stunned survivors, their burnt faces smeared with thick grey ash, amid a landscape of billowing smoke. “Mum, help Ife,” says one, Zhafirah Zahrim Febrina, 19, referring to herself by a family nickname. “This is Ife’s situation right now.”
In another, a young woman croaks into the camera on her smartphone, her hair thick with ash.
Officials said 49 people, most of them hikers, were evacuated from the volcano yesterday after a night on the mountain. According to rescuers, the 11 dead and many of the injured were close to the crater when it erupted.
Twelve people were still missing yesterday, with others waiting on the mountain to be brought down. The search was temporarily suspended after a smaller eruption yesterday.
“They are being carried down manually, rescuers are taking turns bringing them down,” Abdul Malik, head of the local government rescue agency, told Agence France-Presse. “We can’t do an air search with a helicopter because the eruption is continuing.”
The 2911m volcano rises dramatically out of a landscape of paddy fields. Sunday’s eruption sent a column of ash, more than 2700m high, into the sky.
Zhafirah was hiking on Marapi with 18 student friends when the eruption began. She is being treated at a hospital in Padang Panjang, in western Sumatra. “She is going through a tremendous trauma,’’ her mother, Rani Radelani, said. “She is affected psychologically because she saw her burns, and she also had to endure the pain all night.” Her injuries include a broken hand.
A 3km area around the volcanic crater has been evacuated. Rain turned black by the ash has fallen on the city of Bukittinggi, 13km away.
Indonesia is in one of the most seismically active regions of the world, with frequent quakes and 127 active volcanoes.
Marapi is one of several volcanoes in the Pacific basin known as the Ring of Fire. It is the most active on the island of Sumatra, and it erupted, on a smaller scale, as recently as March, although no injuries were reported. About 1400 people live on the slopes of the volcano, with the nearest villages barely 5km from the peak.
Marapi was at the third-highest alert level when the eruption occurred. - The Times