At least 11 tourists have died and 12 others are missing after the Marapi volcano erupted on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Corporate News Agency reports that the bodies of the dead tourists were found near the Marapi crater.
Three tourists were found alive, but they have not yet been brought down from the mountain. At the same time, 49 people with burns and injuries managed to be evacuated.
"We canʼt do an air search with a helicopter because the eruption is ongoing," said the head of the local rescue agency Abdul Malik.
The eruption was followed by an ash plume that reached Bukittinggi, the third largest city in West Sumatra with a population of over 100 000 people.
A plume of smoke and ash blocked the sun and covered nearby cars, scooters and ambulances.
Marapi has the second alert level of Indonesiaʼs four-tiered system, and authorities have established a three-kilometer exclusion zone around its crater.
- The Indonesian archipelago is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the contact of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity. There are about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia.