February 1, 2014 Eruption of Sinabung

A rumbling volcano in western Indonesia on Saturday unleashed fresh clouds of searing gas that killed at least 14 people and injured three, only a day after villagers who fled earlier eruptions returned home thinking it was safe, officials said. The dead included four high school students on a school trip to see the volcano and a local journalist, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said that the government on Friday allowed nearly 14,000 people living outside a three-mile danger zone to return home after the volcano's activity decreased. Mount Sinabung's morning eruption was followed by a more powerful blast that sent lava and pyroclastic flows down southern slopes up to 2.8 miles away, Nugroho said. Television footage showed villages, farms and trees around the 8,530-foot -high volcano covered in thick gray ash. Authorities were still preventing more than 16,000 villagers living along the path of hot clouds from going back to their homes, but many of them insisted on checking their houses and farms after more than four months of being crammed into temporary shelters. Authorities raised the alert status for Sinabung to the highest level in November. (reference #10862)

The death toll from an Indonesian volcano that has been rumbling for months rose to 16 Sunday after rescuers found another charred corpse and a critically injured college student died in a hospital, officials said. (reference #10863)

Officials said about 170 people armed with chainsaws and oxygen apparatus spread out through the destruction in Sukameriah village, just 2.7 kilometres from Sinabung’s crater, on Sunday before the search was called off. "There’s no sign of human life. All the crops were gone. Many houses were damaged and those still standing were covered in thick white ash. It was hard to walk in ash which nearly reached my calves," Gito, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told reporters. (reference #10866)

12 March-18 March 2014. PVMBG described activity at Sinabung during 8-15 March based on observations from a post in the Ndokum Siroga village, 8.5 km away... The report also noted that three people burned during a pyroclastic flow on 1 February later died in the hospital bringing the total number of casualties from that day to 17. The Alert Level remained at 4 (on a scale of 1-4). Visitors and tourists were prohibited from approaching the crater within a radius of 5 km. (reference #2432).