Indonesia's Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano erupts on the island of Flores, burning houses and killing at least ten people

Maumere, Indonesia – Indonesia's national disaster management agency said on Monday that at least 10 people had died as a series of volcanic eruptions spread across the remote island of Flores. The eruption at Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki around midnight spewed thick brownish ash up to 6,500 feet into the air and hot ash hit several villages and burned houses including a convent of Catholic nuns, said Firman Yosef, an official at Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki monitoring post.

Yosef said volcanic material was thrown up to 6 kilometers from the volcano's crater, covering surrounding villages and towns with tons of volcanic debris and forcing residents to flee.

Rescuers were still searching for more bodies buried under collapsed houses, said Abdul Muhari, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency. Muhari said all the bodies, including a child, were found within 2.4 miles of the crater. He said at least 10,000 people were affected by the outbreak in six villages.

Some people fled to relatives' homes while the local government prepared schools for use as emergency shelters.

The country's volcano monitoring agency raised the volcano's alert status to the highest level after midnight on Monday and doubled the exclusion zone to a 7.9-kilometer radius as eruptions became more frequent.

A nun in the village of Hokeng has died and another is missing, said Agusta Palma, the head of the Saint Gabriel Foundation, which oversees monasteries on the predominantly Catholic island.

“Our panicked nuns ran out into the darkness under a shower of volcanic ash,” Palma said.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed that in villages like Hokeng, tons of volcanic debris covered houses up to the roofs, where hot volcanic material set buildings on fire.

Lewotobi Laki-laki is one of two stratovolcanoes in East Flores District, East Nusa Tenggara Province, known locally as Husband Mountains – “Laki-laki” means husband – and Wife Mountains. His partner is Lewotobi Perempuan or woman.

About 6,500 people were evacuated in January after Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted, spewing thick clouds and forcing the government to close the island's Frans Seda Airport. No casualties or major damage were reported, but the airport has remained closed since then due to seismic activity.

In a video conference on Monday, Muhammad Wafid, the head of the geology agency at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, said there was a difference in character between the January eruption and Monday's eruption because a magma blockage in the crater reduced detectable seismic pressure build up.

“The eruptions that have occurred since Friday were due to the accumulation of hidden energy,” Wafid said.

It is the second volcanic eruption in Indonesia in just a few weeks. Mount Marapi in West Sumatra province, one of the country's most active volcanoes, erupted on October 27, spewing thick columns of ash at least three times and covering surrounding villages with debris, but no casualties were reported. An eruption of Mount Marapi in late 2023 did this claim at least 23 lives.

Lewotobi Laki-laki is one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of about 280 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it lies on the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.