Hundreds of tourists missing after volcano erupts in Indonesia

At least 250 tourists are still missing after the Barujari volcano eruption on September 27, most of them foreigners.

According to NBC News, at least 250 tourists are still missing after the Barujari volcano (North Lombok province, Indonesia) erupted at 3:00 p.m. on September 27. The ash column was up to 2 kilometers high, forcing more than 1,000 people to evacuate.

Barujari volcano eruption forces more than 1,000 people to evacuate. Photo: The Ankara Times.

A representative of the Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency said that the initial search and rescue operation identified 120 foreign tourists out of 389 people who registered to climb the mountain. They were brought down on September 28. No casualties were recorded among the tourists found. Indonesian officials have not yet announced the nationalities of the missing tourists and the search is still urgently underway.

The eruption also caused flights to be delayed for several hours at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali and Selaparang, Mataram. Nearby farms were covered in ash but there was no immediate threat to local villages and residents.

Barujari is a small volcano located inside the Rinjani crater, on the island of Lombok between Bali and West Nusa Tenggara. This area is prone to earthquakes and eruptions due to its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire.

According to VNE