ARGOMULYO (Indonesia), Nov 5: Indonesia’s most active volcano killed 77 people on Friday in its biggest eruption in over a century, incinerating homes, grounding flights and driving thousands into shelters.

Ash, deadly heat clouds and molten debris gushed from the mouth of Mount Merapi and shot high into the sky for most of the night and into the morning, triggering panic and chaos on the roads as people fled in the darkness.

The latest deaths bring the overall toll to 120 since the volcano started erupting on Java island on Oct 26, a day after a tsunami killed more than 400 people in a remote area off Sumatra island to the west.

The mountain spewed ash over a vast area including the Central Java provincial capital of Yogyakarta, about 28kms to the south.

“The death toll from last night’s eruption rose to 77 and the total number since the first eruption on October 26 has become 120 people killed,” National Disaster Management spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Many of the dead were from Argomulyo village, 18 kilometres from the crater, according to emergency response officials and witnesses, with several children under the age of 10 killed. There were at least 156 people injured in the latest eruption, the spokesman said, “most suffered burn injuries”.

Rescuer Utha said as he delivered 10 bodies to the hospital: “I found three bodies: a child, mother and father, still in their bed. They must have been sleeping when the hot ash struck their house. “We also found a dead man with a phone still in his hand.” Yogyakarta police force medic Teguh Dwi Santosa said: “Argomulyo village has been burned down to the ground by the heat clouds. Many children have died there. When I was in the village the ground was still hot.” A river running through the village overflowed with a thick mixture of mud and ash, and several bodies lay unclaimed in the debris, witnesses said.

The ranks of evacuees increased to 166,556 people after officials widened the danger zone from 15 to 20kms early Friday. Everyone living in the area was ordered to evacuate their homes and shelters immediately.

The international airport at Yogyakarta was closed as ash clouds billowed from the 2,914-metre mountain to the altitude of cruising jetliners and the runway was covered in grey soot. Officials said the airport would remain closed until Saturday.

Merapi killed around 1,300 people in 1930 but even though the total death toll from its latest series of eruptions is only about 100, experts say they are the biggest convulsions since 1872. “Judging from the material emitted, Merapi’s eruption this time is bigger than the 1930 eruption,” government volcanologist Subandrio said.

Indonesia’s transport ministry has told pilots to stay at least 12kms away from the rumbling volcano and several flights linking central Java to Singapore and Malaysia have been cancelled this week. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced the deployment of an army brigade to help with relief and reconstruction in central Java, as the disaster-prone country struggles to cope with dual natural disasters.

“The military is preparing to deploy one brigade to handle disaster management,” he told a press conference.

The three-metre tsunami smashed into villages on the remote Mentawai island chain following a 7.7-magnitude earthquake off the coast on October 25, killing 428 people and leaving 15,000 homeless.

Another 74 people remain missing, feared dead.

Bad weather and poor communications on the undeveloped islands — a legendary destination for foreign surfers — have hampered relief operations.—AFP