PADANG, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian authorities on Monday halted the search for 12 climbers after Mount Marapi volcano erupted again, sending a new wave of hot ash as high as 800 meters (2,620 feet) into the air, officials said.
Abdul Malik, head of West Sumatra’s search and rescue agency, said the bodies of 11 climbers had been recovered earlier in the day – during a search for missing people – but attempts to transport them were hampered by the renewed activity. He added that the search operation will resume as soon as conditions improve.
A video clip published by the agency showed rescuers evacuating an injured climber on a stretcher from the mountain to an ambulance that was waiting to take him to the hospital.
Marapi volcano first erupted on Sunday, spewing clouds of hot ash.
The volcano has remained at the third-highest of four alert levels since 2011, a level that indicates above-normal volcanic activity, prohibiting climbing and villagers within 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) of the summit, said Hendra Gunawan, head of the Center for Volcanology. And mitigate the effects of geological disasters.
“This means there should be no climbing to the summit,” Gunawan said, adding that climbers were only allowed to be below the danger zone, “but sometimes many of them would break the rules to satisfy their desire to climb further.”
About 75 climbers had started their way up the nearly 2,900-meter (9,480-foot) mountain on Saturday and were stranded. Authorities rescued 52 people, including three on Monday. Eight of those rescued on Sunday were taken to hospital with burns and one of them suffered a broken limb, said Harry Agustian, an official at the local search and rescue agency in Padang, the capital of West Sumatra province.
Agustian said all the climbers registered themselves at two leadership centers or online through the West Sumatra Conservation Agency before they embarked on their climb. When asked about the total number of people who might be stranded, he said it could not be confirmed because some may have taken illegal routes up the mountain and residents may also have been in the area.
Marape spewed thick plumes of ash up to 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) high in Sunday’s eruption and clouds of hot ash spread for several miles. Tons of volcanic debris covered nearby villages and towns. Volcanic dust and rain stained the faces and hair of evacuated climbers, according to a video posted on social media.
Falling ash covered several villages and blocked sunlight, and authorities distributed masks while urging residents to wear glasses to protect them from volcanic ash.
About 1,400 people live on the slopes of Marabi in Rubai and Jubah Kumantiang, the nearest villages about 5 to 6 kilometers (3.1 to 3.7 mi) from the summit.
Gunawan said Sunday’s eruption was not preceded by a significant increase in volcanic earthquakes. Deep volcanic earthquakes were recorded only three times between November 16 and Sunday, while deformation or clinometer equipment at the summit showed a horizontal pattern on the radial axis and a slight amplification on the transverse axis.
He added: “This indicates that the eruption process occurs quickly and that the center of pressure is very shallow, around the summit.”
Gunawan said Marapi volcano has been observed to erupt regularly since 2004 with a gap of two to four years.
“The Marape eruption is always sudden and difficult to detect using equipment because the source is close to the surface, and this eruption was not caused by magma movement,” Gunawan said.
Marapi volcano has been active since the eruption last January, which did not cause any casualties. It is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is vulnerable to seismic disturbances due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
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Associated Press writer Ninick Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
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This story has been updated to correct the number of climbers still missing.
