

Among the dead on Mount Sinabung were a local television journalist and four high school students and their teacher who were visiting the mountain to see the eruptions up close, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. At least three other people were injured, and authorities feared the death toll would rise.


On Friday, authorities allowed nearly 14,000 people living outside a five-kilometres danger zone to return home after volcanic activity decreased. Others living close to the peak have been returning to their homes over the past four months despite the dangers.

On Saturday, a series of huge blasts and eruptions thundered from the 2,600-metre-high volcano, sending lava and pyroclastic flows up to 4.5 kilometres away, Nugroho said. Television footage showed villages, farms and trees around the volcano covered in thick gray ash.

Death toll will likely rise

Following the eruption, all those who had been allowed to return home Friday were ordered back into evacuation centres.



In 2010, 324 people were killed over two months when Indonesia's most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, roared into life. As now in Sinabung, authorities struggled to keep people away from the mountain. Scientists monitor Merapi, Sinabung and other Indonesian volcanoes nonstop, but predicting their activity with any accuracy is all but impossible.


Sinabung's last major eruption was in August 2010, when it killed two people. Prior to that it had been quiet for four centuries.