YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Indonesians living near Mount Merapi on Java fled early Saturday when the volcano began belching hot ash, a government vulcanologist said.
Sorono, chief of the Center for Vulcanology and Disaster Mitigation, said the eruption was a brief one, lasting little more than 20 minutes, the Indo-Asian News Service reported.
"We have been unable to determine how far the hot clouds traveled because it was very dark," Sorono said.
The eruption was the fourth in five days. The first one, on Tuesday, sent poisonous gas and hot ash thousands of feet into the air, incinerated trees and killed 36 people.
Merapi in central Java is one of 16 volcanoes around the world singled out in a United Nations report for their combination of activity and closeness to population centers. Antara, the Indonesian government news agency, reported ash from the Saturday morning eruption covered the city of Yogyakarta, about 20 miles away.
UPI
