In addition, 41 people – including two pregnant women – were injured, severely burned by the incandescent lava, reported Indah Masdar, deputy governor of the Lumajang region, where the town is located.
“We transferred the victims with burns to the clinics and, in the case of the most serious, they were hospitalized”, he detailed.
The rescuers mobilized to evacuate the neighbors before the advance of the lava. In some areas, they experienced difficulty moving forward, due to dense debris and cold knee-deep lava. These obstacles hamper efforts to find the missing and evacuate eight people locked in a muddy building.
Cold lava has already destroyed a Lumajang bridge, which allowed access to the area, according to Masdar. In other towns, residents panicked and fled when lava and volcanic ash reached their towns, according to authorities.
“Many areas were left in darkness by the volcanic ash”, said the spokesman for the disaster control agency, Abdul Muhari. “We are building shelters in various areas of Lumajang,” he added.
A video released by the agency shows neighbors, including many children, taking refuge after the Mount Semeru eruption.
This volcano remained on the second highest alert level since the great eruption that occurred in December 2020, which forced thousands of people to flee.
The Indonesian archipelago is located in the Pacific “Ring of Fire” with almost 130 active volcanoes due to the fusion of continental plates.
At the end of 2018, the eruption of a volcano in the strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra caused an underwater earthquake followed by a tsunami that left more than 400 people dead.
Source From: Ambito
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