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BATU PALANO, Indonesia (AP) — The search to locate more victims among climbers who were captured during a weekend eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Marapi volcano that killed 23 more people and injured several others is over, officials said Thursday. .
About 75 climbers started up the nearly 2,900-meter (9,480-foot) mountain in Agam district of West Sumatra province on Saturday and were on the volcano when it erupted the following day.
West Sumatra Police Chief Suharyono previously said the discovery of a university student’s body on Wednesday raised the death toll to 23. Officials said Thursday they believed all of the dead had been found.
Following an assessment of the results of the search and rescue, “authorities have halted search and rescue operations on Mount Marapi, as all the victims were discovered on Wednesday afternoon,” said Abdul Muhari, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
The National Search and Rescue Agency said all the bodies had been taken to a hospital by late Wednesday for identification.
Some climbers were rescued after Sunday’s initial eruption and a dozen were taken to hospital with serious or minor injuries.
Marapi shot thick columns of ash as high as 3 kilometers (more than 9,800 feet) in Sunday’s eruption and hot ash clouds spread for several kilometers (miles). Nearby villages and towns were blanketed by volcanic debris that blocked sunlight, and authorities recommended people wear masks as protection against the ash.
Since then, smaller eruptions have spewed more ash into the air, reducing visibility and halting search and recovery operations.
Marapi is known for its sudden eruptions, which are hard to expect because they are caused by a deep movement of magma, which causes tremors recorded on seismic monitors.
The volcano is at Indonesia’s second-highest alert point since 2011, indicating higher-than-normal volcanic activity that forced climbers and villagers to move more than 3 kilometers away from the summit, according to the Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.
The climbers were not meant to make their way into the danger zone, but the local government claimed that many other people may have simply climbed more than allowed.
Marapi is one of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The country is exposed to seismic tremors due to its location on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and faults that surround the Pacific basin.
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Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
Tuesday Rosa Tanjung, Associated Press
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