1 killed, 40 injured following volcanic eruption in Indonesia

JAKARTA - Semeru volcano in Indonesia's East Java province erupted on Saturday, leaving one killed, two missing and 40 others injured, a local official told a joint virtual news conference.

The disaster also damaged scores of houses in the district and hot lava hampered rescuers from evacuating eight trapped miners who asked authorities by mobile phones for help, said the Lumajang District's Deputy Head Indah Amperawati Masdar.

"All the houses in Curah Kobokan village were destroyed. For the eight trapped miners, the help could not be conducted due to the hot lava," she said.

Some of the people suffered serious injuries and have been rushed to nearby hospitals, she said.

The official asked the disaster management and mitigation agency to deploy a helicopter to assist and evacuate the disaster affected villagers.

Separately, the Lumajang District's head has asked for deploying more soldiers to evacuate and rescue the affected people.

Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management and Mitigation Agency's acting spokesperson said their monitoring post reported that the hot clouds started spreading from the crater of the volcano at 3:10 pm Jakarta time (8:10 am GMT).

The evacuation of villagers living on the slope of the volcano is under way now, and several evacuation centers have been established, he said in a statement received by Xinhua.