Indonesia volcano death toll rises to 23 after rescuers find body of last missing hiker on Mount Marapi

The death toll from a volcano eruption in Indonesia has risen to 23 after 10 more bodies were discovered, officials said Wednesday. Rescuers searching the hazardous slopes of Indonesia's Mount Marapi volcano found the body of the last climber determined missing after being caught in a surprise eruption over the weekend.

Mount Marapi on the island of Sumatra spewed an ash tower 9,800 feet — taller than the volcano itself — into the sky on Sunday. About 75 climbers who had started their way up the mountain on Saturday became stranded, and about 52 of them were rescued after the initial eruption, while 11 more were initially confirmed dead. New eruptions spewed additional columns of hot ash into the air on Monday and Tuesday, reducing visibility and temporarily halting the search and recovery operations, said Abdul Malik, chief of the Padang Search and Rescue Agency.

Hundreds of rescuers have worked for days to find missing hikers. The National Search and Rescue Agency said bodies of two climbers were found on Monday and nine more were found the next day.

"Nine of 10 missing victims were found dead this afternoon and at the moment, they are being evacuated. There is one remaining victim currently in the search," Malik told AFP on Tuesday. 

West Sumatra's Police Chief Suharyono said the body of the last climber was found early Wednesday, just a few meters from the eruption site, bringing the death toll rise to 23, the AP reported.

Rescuers told BBC News Indonesia they have been taking advantage of windows of relative calm to look for the missing and efforts to look for the last missing hiker would resume on Wednesday.

The dead were carried down the mountain in body bags over several days, rescue officials said.

Images shared by Basarnas showed a rescue team of six in orange jackets and hard hats carrying a body down the side of the volcano on Tuesday.

Some of the 75 hikers on the mountain during the eruption were found alive and carried down, with multiple suffering burns and fractures.

"The eruption sounded loud"

One survivor spoke of his panic after the eruption began.

"I was zig-zagging, going down around 30 to 40 meters" to a trekking post, Ridho, 22, told AFP from a bed in a nearby hospital.

"The eruption sounded loud, I took a look behind then immediately ran away as everyone did. Some jumped and fell. I took cover behind the rocks, there were no trees there."

The volcano was still erupting as of midday on Tuesday, according to officials, slowing the rescue efforts of more than 200 personnel.

Later in the day, rainfall and volcanic smoke were still blocking a view of Marapi, according to an AFP journalist.

Ahmad Rifandi, head of Marapi's monitoring post, told AFP Tuesday it had observed five eruptions from midnight to 8 a.m.

"Marapi is still very much active. We can't see the height of the column because it's covered by the cloud," he said.

The head of Indonesia's volcanology agency, Hendra Gunawan, said Marapi has been at the second level of a four-tier alert system since 2011, and a three-kilometer exclusion zone had been imposed around its crater.

He appeared to blame hikers on Monday for going too close to the crater, saying the agency recommended no human activities in that zone, and emphasized that "severe impacts" were reported for victims within one to 1.5 kilometers from the crater.

Officials said the hikers had registered through an online booking system, but others may have been on illegal mountain routes.

Those killed were severely burned and forensic workers were preparing to identify the dead by dental and fingerprint records, or based on marks on their bodies, said Eka Purnamasari, an official from the West Sumatra police medical unit.

The search would last seven days until all of the hikers were found, rescue officials said.

"Traumatized by the eruption"

Video footage of Sunday's eruption showed a huge cloud of volcanic ash spread widely across the sky, and cars and roads covered with ash, the BBC reported.

On Monday, rescuers took turns carrying the dead and the injured down the mountain's difficult terrain and onto ambulances with blaring sirens, the BBC reported.

"Some suffered from burns because it was very hot, and they have been taken to the hospital," West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency head Rudy Rinaldi said.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where tectonic plates collide.

Mount Marapi, which means "Mountain of Fire," is the most active volcano on Sumatra island and one of the archipelago's nearly 130 active volcanoes. Marapi's deadliest eruption occurred in 1979, when 60 people died, the BBC reported.

Locals described the carnage when the volcano burst to life on Sunday.

"The villagers were shocked because of the thundering noise, then there was a jolt and also a boom," said Adrizal, head of local village Nagari Lasi. "The villagers were very traumatized by the eruption."

In:
• Volcano
• Indonesia

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