Dec 5, 2021:The death toll from Indonesia’s Semeru volcano has risen to 13, with rescue workers pulling 10 people out of the rubble overnight, officials said.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said in a statement on Sunday that two of the 13 people killed in the eruption had been identified.

At least 98 people were injured, including two pregnant women, spokesman Abdul Mehri said, adding that 902 people had been evacuated from villages around Semeru in East Java province.

Rescue workers are still missing seven residents and a sand miner by a river in Kora Kobokan village. The volcano, located on Indonesia’s most densely populated island of Java, erupted on Saturday, with ash columns spewing more than 12 kilometers into the sky, and gas and lava flowing down its slopes.

Many villages in the Lumajung District of East Java Province were covered with ash.

The sudden eruption was triggered by a thunderstorm and days of heavy rains, according to Eko Budi Lelono, who heads the geological survey centre. He said the rains eroded and finally collapsed the lava dome atop the 3,676-meter Semeru.

Flows of searing gas and lava travelled up to 800 metres to a nearby river at least twice on Saturday, he said.

Semerus alert status remains at its second highest level since its last major eruption in December 2020, which displaced thousands of people and left ash-covered villages. No casualties were reported at the time.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines.

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