JAKARTA, Indonesia — A week of tragic misadventure on one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes entered its second day Saturday, after rescuers recovered the body of a local Indonesian hiker killed in Mount Dukono’s latest eruption, while search efforts continue for two missing Singaporean climbers amid ongoing volcanic unrest.
The three fatal and missing hikers were part of a group of 20 people who deliberately ignored official safety restrictions to scale the 1,355-meter (4,445-foot) peak on Halmahera, a remote eastern Indonesian island, when Dukono erupted early Friday. The blast sent a dense ash plume 10 kilometers (6 miles) into the sky, trapping the entire group before they could descend to safety.
Iwan Ramdani, head of the local Search and Rescue Office, confirmed that the recovered victim, a local hiker identified only as Enjel, was found Saturday afternoon roughly 50 meters (165 feet) from the volcano’s main crater. As of Saturday evening, the two Singaporean climbers’ locations remain undetermined, with rescue teams navigating persistent volcanic activity to continue their search.
By hours after the initial eruption, 17 members of the climbing group had been successfully pulled to safety. The evacuated group includes seven Singaporean nationals and two Indonesian hikers who later joined rescue operations to share critical details about the victims’ planned routes before the blast. Ten of the 17 survivors sustained minor burn injuries from the eruption.
Over 100 rescue personnel, supported by aerial drone reconnaissance, restarted the search at dawn Saturday, concentrating their efforts on a 700 square-meter (7,500 square-foot) zone where investigators uncovered new potential clues during initial sweeps. The operation has been complicated by the volcano’s unstable terrain and repeated fresh eruptions that force teams to pause and pull back repeatedly.
“Every step of this search requires careful calculation and a deliberate, well-planned evacuation strategy,” Ramdani explained in a video statement. “We have to constantly factor in the risk of sudden volcanic escalation, as well as the safety of every member of our rescue team. The main challenge is that we are racing against ongoing eruptions. When conditions are declared safe, we advance closer to the crater, but if a new eruption begins, we have to immediately pull all personnel back to safety.”
Indonesia’s national volcanology agency recorded multiple fresh eruptions between early and late Saturday, including new ash plumes reaching 3,000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) above the crater. Monitoring posts near the peak also spotted lava bursts overnight Friday into Saturday.
Mount Dukono has been classified at the second-highest alert level for volcanic activity since 2008, and officials established a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) exclusion zone around the active crater in December 2024. Local authorities formally closed all hiking routes to the peak in early 2025, and strengthened the ban in the wake of Friday’s tragedy.
Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency has warned that anyone entering restricted volcanic zones could face legal penalties, and has urged all hikers and tour operators across the country to abide by official safety guidelines. Similar exclusion and access restrictions are currently in place for dozens of other active volcanoes across Indonesia that are also experiencing elevated activity.
As a sprawling archipelago nation home to more than 270 million people, Indonesia sits along the Pacific Ocean’s geologically active “Ring of Fire,” and hosts more than 120 active volcanoes within its borders.