Mount Merapi Eruption: 11 died by Indonesian Rescuers in West Sumatra.
Three climbers were discovered alive atop the Mount Merapi eruption, according to a rescue official, while at least 12 climbers remained unaccounted for. Another official estimated that there were 22 people missing.
A minor eruption on Monday prompted the search to be temporarily suspended due to safety concerns, according to Jodi Haryawan, a spokesman for the search and rescue team.
He told the news agency, “If we continue searching now, it’s too dangerous.”
According to him, 49 climbers were taken out of the area earlier on Monday, and many of them were receiving burn treatment.
Abdul Malik, the head of the Padang Search and Rescue Agency, stated in a statement on Sunday that there are 26 people who have not been evacuated. Of them, 14 have been found; three were found alive and 11 were found dead.
As of Saturday, he said, there were seventy-five hikers on the mountain.
On Sunday, the volcano erupted, sending plumes of white and grey ash across several villages, trapping and injuring climbers.
Following the eruption, two climbing routes were closed, and locals living 1.8 miles (or 3 km) from the crater’s mouth were warned to avoid the area due to possible lava, according to Ahmad Rifandi, an official with Indonesia’s Geological Hazard Mitigation Center and Volcanology and Seismology Department at the Merapi monitoring post.
On Saturday, though, about 75 climbers had begun their ascent of the nearly 2,900-meter (9,480-foot) mountain. In Padang, the provincial capital of West Sumatra, more than 160 personnel, including police and soldiers, were sent out to look for them, according to Hari Agustian, an official at the local Search and Rescue Agency.
According to earlier reports, eight of the people who were saved had burns and one had a broken limb, he said.
