When Indonesia’s Mount Dukono volcano erupted on Friday, three hikers—two Singaporeans and a local—died because they were in a no-go area, according to officials.
No towns or villages were close enough to be in immediate danger when the eruption on Halmahera Island launched an ash cloud roughly 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into the air.
At a volcano monitoring station in Mamuya village, North Halmahera police commander Erlichson Pasaribu told reporters that twenty hikers were on the slopes when the accident occurred.
He said nine were from Singapore and the rest Indonesian.
As of Friday evening, 17 climbers — seven of them foreigners — have been found alive, according to the head of local rescue agency Iwan Ramdani.
Rescue efforts have been paused and will resume Saturday, he said.
Tour guide Alex Djangu, who was on the slopes when the eruption happened, said he arrived with a tour group on Thursday and found the volcano acting “a bit strange”.
“This was the first time I’d seen it so quiet,” he said by telephone from his hotel not far from the volcano.
“I told the guests that a major eruption is going to happen because the volcano is accumulating pressure at the bottom of the crater. And my prediction turned out to be correct.”
When the eruption happened, there were two groups of tourists, about 15 in total, at the crater rim, the 48-year-old recounted.
“I panicked, I thought they had all died, but it turned out that in the end only three died,” the tour guide added.
Djangu was with two German hikers who “survived because we were in the safe radius,” he said, describing this as the biggest eruption of Mount Dukono he had ever witnessed.
“Previously, when there was an eruption, there would be a single blast and then it was over. This time, the eruption started at 7:42 and by the time we came down the intensity was still the same, rocks were still coming out of the crater.”
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