Three hikers, including two Singaporeans, have died following the eruption of the Mount Dukono volcano in North Maluku, Indonesia, local police have said.
“The latest information is that there are three fatalities; two of them are foreign citizens from Singapore.
“The other one is a Ternate resident,” North Halmahera Police Chief Erlichson Pasaribu told TV outlet KompasTV yesterday, referring to a city in North Maluku.
Erlichson said 20 hikers had been on the mountain when it erupted, including nine foreigners. The remaining seven foreigners had safely come down from the mountain as at 2pm local time.
He added that the bodies of the three victims had yet to be retrieved from the mountain, as eruptions were still ongoing.
Head of local rescue agency Iwan Ramdani told Reuters that nine of the hikers are Singaporean and the rest are Indonesians.
He added that the agency has deployed dozens of personnel, including police, to search for the 20 hikers trapped by the eruption.
According to information from the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, the volcano first started erupting at 7.41am.
Mount Dukono had been put on Level 2 alert status, which indicates heightened volcanic activity, since March 29.
Erlichson said that hikers had been warned away from the mountain since then, but some hikers had still gone up the mountain despite the risks.
Lana Saria, head of the government Geology Agency, said the early-morning eruption was accompanied by a “booming sound” and a thick smoke column rising around 10km from the summit of Mount Dukono.
“The direction of the ash distribution leans northward, so residential areas and Tobelo City need to be vigilant for... volcanic ash rain,” she said in a statement.
The smoke could be dangerous for public health, Lana added, and risked disrupting transportation services.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide. It has nearly 130 active volcanoes. — Agencies
