A devastating volcanic eruption on Indonesia’s Halmahera Island has claimed three lives and left 10 hikers unaccounted for, local authorities confirmed Friday. Mount Dukono, one of the Southeast Asian nation’s nearly 130 active volcanoes, burst into activity early Friday, blasting a dense column of ash 10 kilometers into the sky.
Among the three fatalities are two foreign hikers and one local resident from the nearby island of Ternate, North Halmahera Police Chief Erlichson Pasaribu told Indonesia’s Kompas TV. Seven hikers managed to descend the mountain safely, while five others suffered injuries in the blast, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).
What makes this incident particularly sobering is that the entire area surrounding the volcano was officially designated off-limits to visitors last month, after vulcanologists detected a sharp uptick in volcanic activity. Pasaribu confirmed that the group of hikers deliberately ignored multiple warnings, including public appeals on social media and physical barricades posted at the trailhead. “Local residents understand the risk and avoid climbing,” he said. “Many of these hikers are foreign tourists looking to create social media content.”
Joint rescue teams from the regional disaster management agency BPBD and the National Search and Rescue Agency Basarnas have been deployed to conduct search operations and evacuate stranded climbers, but the mission has faced significant challenges. The mountain’s rugged terrain is only accessible by vehicle for the lower portion of the climb, forcing rescuers to carry stretchers the rest of the way. Persistent volcanic rumbling and ongoing unstable activity have further slowed progress, Pasaribu added.
Lana Saria, head of Indonesia’s government Geology Agency, noted that the early-morning eruption was accompanied by loud booming explosions, with ash drifting predominantly northward. She warned that nearby residential areas and the city of Tobelo must remain on high alert for falling volcanic ash, which poses risks to public health and can disrupt local air and ground transportation.
Indonesia, an archipelagic nation spanning thousands of islands across Southeast Asia, sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a geologically active zone where frequent collisions between tectonic plates create regular seismic and volcanic activity. Mount Dukono currently stands at level two on Indonesia’s four-tiered volcanic alert system. Since December, the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) has maintained a mandatory exclusion zone banning all visitors within four kilometers of the volcano’s active Malupang Warirang Crater.