TOBELO, North Halmahera: Two small mounds of volcanic sand near the crater of Indonesia’s Mount Dukono, just three metres from where an Indonesian woman was found dead, are now the focus of an increasingly grim search on May 10 for two missing Singaporean hikers.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, Basarnas, said on May 10 that 150 personnel were deployed, divided into four search and rescue units to comb an area extending about 1.25km from the point where the hikers were last seen.
The search is being guided by the location where the Indonesian woman was found a day earlier.
The two hikers have not been seen since the volcano erupted on the morning of May 8, showering climbers near the summit with hot rocks, ash and volcanic debris.
In a briefing before the search resumed, Iwan Ramdani, head of the Ternate search and rescue office, said the operation on May 10 was focused on the area around the crater rim.
“We hope the two foreign nationals can be found on the third day of this operation,” he said.
In a release on May 9, Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said: “The joint rescue team will resume the search on Sunday (May 10), particularly at the two mounds of material that have been marked using Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates.”
“The two locations are strongly suspected to be linked to the two other victims who remain missing,” it added.
Iwan said rescuers were working under dangerous conditions as the volcano continued to erupt intermittently.
“The safety of the rescue team remains the priority because weather conditions and volcanic activity continue to produce hot ash and other material,” he said.
Members of a joint rescue team found the first victim, an Indonesian woman, at about 2.30 pm local time on May 9, around 50m from the rim of the crater.
Heavy rain had forced rescuers to stop work and take shelter after hours of combing through deep volcanic sand.
When the rain eased, only the lower half of the woman’s body, from her feet to her waist, was visible above the ash.
Her remains were recovered and taken to the eruption command post before being transferred to a hospital in Tobelo.
With daylight fading and volcanic activity still high, the team decided to suspend further work.
Footage released by the agency showed more than a dozen Indonesian rescuers moving in single file through dense mountain forest, their orange helmets and uniforms standing out against giant ferns and moss-covered trees.
On the narrow and muddy trail, they stepped carefully over fallen logs and slick volcanic soil as they carried the victim on a stretcher down the mountain slopes.
The scene underscored the immense difficulty of the operation to recover the victims of the May 8 eruption of Mount Dukono, an active volcano on the remote island of Halmahera in eastern Indonesia.
The missing hikers were part of a group of 20 – nine Singaporeans and 11 Indonesians – who trekked on May 7 despite a climbing ban imposed by the local authorities on April 17 and a standing four-kilometre no-go exclusion zone around the crater.
Volcanologists had expanded the no-go zone from 3km in 2024.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on May 9 that seven Singaporeans evacuated from Mount Dukono were on their way to Jakarta and were expected to return to Singapore on May 10. - The Straits Times/ANN
