AFP- Adi Prima
Eleven hikers were found dead Monday and another 12 were missing after a volcano erupted in Indonesia, with rescuers racing to carry injured and burned survivors down the mountain on foot.
Rescuers worked through the night to find dozens of hikers stranded on Mount Marapi on the island of Sumatra after it spewed an ash tower 3,000 metres into the sky.
The dead hikers were found near Marapi's crater after the 2,891-metre volcano rained ash on nearby villages, according to a local rescue official.
Twelve were missing, three more were found alive and 49 had safely descended from the crater, some with burns and fractures, the official said.
"They are being carried down manually, rescuers are taking turns bringing them down. We can't do an air search with a helicopter because the eruption is ongoing," said local rescue agency chief Abdul Malik, who added about 120 rescuers were involved in the search.
The three other people who had been found alive were yet to be taken down the mountain, along with the 11 dead.
Local rescue agency spokesperson Jodi Haryawan said the rescue efforts had been broken up by sporadic eruptions but the search was still going despite the risks.
"Once it was safer they continued the search. So the search was not halted," he told AFP.
Rudy Rinaldi, head of the West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency, told AFP some of the rescued hikers had suffered burns.
The Southeast Asian country has nearly 130 active volcanoes.
