Soldiers wearing heat-retardant clothes dug through volcanic debris yesterday trying to reach two people trapped in an underground emergency shelter on Indonesia's erupting Mount Merapi, officials said.
The fierce heat melted the troops' shovels and the tires on a mechanical digger brought into plow through more than 2m of volcanic debris covering the bunker, built for protection from volcanic eruption, Major Sunarso said.
The two have been trapped since late on Wednesday when Merapi sent massive clouds of searing gas and rock fragments rolling far down its slopes, rescue worker Joko Hastaryo said.
Scientists had thought that the 3,000m volcano was calming down after weeks of activity, but the violent eruptions led to the re-evacuation of thousands of villagers and the government again put the peak on its highest alert level.
"It was the most terrifying cloud I have ever seen in my life," villager Basirun said. "I left all my possessions, got on my motorbike and drove to the shelter."
Merapi was continuing to spew out scorching gas and rock fragments yesterday, though not as far as on Wednesday.
The two people trapped in the bunker were emergency workers helping evacuate villagers from the mountain, said Sunarso, who goes by a single name.
Reporters were prevented from traveling to the bunker, around 5km from the peak.
Rescue official Hastaryo said the team had initially been in touch with the two trapped people by cellphone, but that their phones no longer worked, perhaps because the batteries had run out.
The bunkers, several of which dot the slopes of Merapi, are typically equipped with water and food and emergency supplies of oxygen.
Merapi is one of more than 70 active volcanoes in Indonesia.
The main dangers at Merapi are fast-moving bursts of blistering gases and rock fragments called pyroclastic flow.
One killed more than 60 villagers in 1994, and about 1,300 people died when Merapi erupted in 1930.
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