Indonesia evacuates tourists after volcano eruption

Indonesian authorities have evacuated some 1,100 tourists after a volcano erupted at one of the country's most popular hiking destinations.

Mount Barujari on Lombok island erupted on Tuesday, shooting ash 2,000m (6,500 ft) into the air.

Officials are still searching for several hundred tourists who remain missing, according to the country's disaster agency.

There have been no reports of injuries caused by the eruption.

Nearly 400 foreign and local tourists have been registered since Sunday to climb the mountain, according to the Disaster Mitigation Agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

The mountaineers were recorded to have left from Sembalun monitoring post, about 11km (7 miles) from the volcano's crater.

Flights were also interrupted for several hours at the nearby Lombok International Airport and the Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali.

The 3,726-metre (12,224ft) high volcano sits within the Mount Rinjani caldera.

Rinjani is among 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia - an archipelago prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes as it sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire".
 BBC
28/9/16
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