11 climbers dead, 12 missing after eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi

Authorities say 75 people were in the area when the West Sumatra volcano erupted on Sunday.

Eleven climbers have been killed and 12 more are missing after the eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi, local officials have said.

Seventy-five people were in the area when the volcano in West Sumatra erupted on Sunday, according to authorities, among whom 26 were not evacuated.

“There are 26 people who have not been evacuated, we have found 14 of them, three were found alive and 11 were found dead,” said Abdul Malik, head of the Padang Search and Rescue Agency.

Video footage of Sunday’s eruption showed a huge cloud of volcanic ash spread across the sky and cars and roads covered with debris. A minor eruption on Monday forced rescue workers to suspend their operations.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific’s so-called “Ring of Fire” and has 127 active volcanoes, according to the country’s volcanology agency, including the 2,891-metre (about 9,500 ft) Mount Merapi.

Merapi, which is currently on the third-highest alert level of Indonesia’s four-step system, has erupted numerous times in recent years.

In March, authorities were forced to suspend tourism and mining activities on its slopes after the volcano spewed smoke and ash over villages near the crater.

The volcano’s last major eruption in 2010 killed more than 300 people and forced the evacuation of about 280,000 residents. The deadliest known eruption occurred in 1930, when more than 1,300 people were killed.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies