INDONESIA: Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano erupted with clouds of hot gas and rained ash on surrounding areas yesterday, sending some nearby villagers who had been reluctant to leave scurrying for safety.
A vulcanologist said the eruption process was in its final stage, although he was reluctant to forecast whether the situation would get worse in Java province.
Grey ash covered fields and hundreds of rooftops in the area of Ketep, 10km (six miles) from the base of the mountain.
Not everyone was gone. Some people cleaned ash off their houses and others opened shops. Commercial mini-buses continued to run.
As ash rained down on villages around the mountain in the early morning hours, schoolchildren in uniform hurried to class, covering their noses and mouths.
The mountain "has exploded already", the head of the Merapi section at the Centre of Vulcanological Research and Technology in Yogyakarta said.
He cautioned, however, that Merapi's eruption process could be gradual rather than a sudden burst, and that the massive eruption scientists fear had yet to come.
The top of Merapi was totally obscured by thick grey and white clouds, which trailed down the volcano's slopes.
Ratmono Purbo, the head of the vulcanology centre in Yogyakarta, said the hot clouds stretched for 4km (2.5 miles), while during an eruption in 1994 they reached 6km before a deadly rain of material started falling.
"Generally the [ lava] dome is still intact but surely it has eroded a little bit," he told reporters yesterday.
"For Merapi, this is the last stage," he said.
During the 1994 eruption, most of the 70 deaths were caused by the outpouring of hot ash and other material following the collapse of a lava dome. The volcano killed 1,300 people in 1930.
Indonesia raised the alert status of Merapi on Saturday to the highest level, also known as code red or danger status, and moved more than 5,000 people living near the volcano to shelters in safe areas.
Thousands more were leaving yesterday, carried in hundreds of trucks and cars.
But Indonesian chief social welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie told reporters that "many residents are still in the dangerous area . . . about 24,000 people. We urge them to come down".
Despite the rain of ash and clouds of smoke, many people were returning to their villages to guard their homes and belongings.