14 Killed As Indonesia’s Largest Volcano Erupts
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Rescue workers desperately searched for survivors Sunday after Indonesia’s largest volcano erupted, killing more than a dozen people.
Following Saturday’s eruption of Mount Semeru on Java island, rescuers managed to free as many as ten people from debris, officials said.
But often, police and military officials were seen digging out bodies with their bare hands as houses were buried to their rooftops and vehicles wholly submerged.
At least 11 villages in Lumajang, in East Java, were coated in volcanic ash by the rumbling mountain. There were also some 56 people injured, with many suffering burns after they mistook hot mudflow for flooding, officials said.
“There were ten people carried away by the mudflow,” explained Salim, a resident using one name in the village of Kampung Renting.
“One of them was almost saved. He was told to run away but said, ‘I can’t, who will feed my cows?'”
BODIES MISSING
Another villager said, “Locals here thought it was just usual floods. We did not know it was hot mud.”
He recalled that “Suddenly, the sky turned dark as rains and hot smoke came. Thankfully, it was raining, so we could breathe.”
Some relatives of the victims in Lumajang in East Java say they have not yet collected their loved ones.
Some of the bodies have not yet been identified.
The eruption came as Indonesia’s minority Christians prepared for a sad Christmas with churches closed due to the coronavirus said a church worker who named herself Victoria.
“We have to keep praying,” for the world’s largest Muslim nation, she told Worthy News.
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