Three hikers – two Singaporeans and a local – died in an eruption on Friday of Indonesia’s Mount Dukono volcano where they found themselves in a no-go zone, officials said.
The eruption on Halmahera island sent an ash cloud about 10km (6.2 miles) into the air, with no towns or villages near enough to face any immediate threat.
Twenty hikers were on the slopes when disaster struck, North Halmahera police chief Erlichson Pasaribu told reporters at a volcano monitoring station in Mamuya village.
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Nine were from Singapore and the rest Indonesian.
“To date, 15 climbers have safely descended,” Erlichson said several hours after the early-morning eruption.
The bodies of the deceased were still on the mountain, he added, without elaborating on the whereabouts of the last two hikers.