(3 Nov 2010) A deadly Indonesian volcano spewing lava and smoke for more than a week erupted on Wednesday with its biggest blast yet, shooting searing ash miles into the air as soldiers hastily evacuated villages and emergency shelters.
Women screamed and children cried as they were loaded into trucks while rocks and debris rained from the sky.
Several abandoned homes were set ablaze and the carcasses of incinerated cattle littered the scorched slopes.
No new casualties were reported immediately after the booming explosion, which lasted more than an hour.
Surono, a state volcanologist said the enormity of the eruption was triple that of the first on 26 October.
More than 70,000 villagers have been evacuated from the 9,700-foot (3,000-metre) Mount Merapi's once-fertile slopes since it began erupting just over a week ago, killing 38 people and injuring dozens, most with severe burns.
Almost all have packed into crowded camps well away from the base.
Soldiers were moving people in trucks from the camp which is 10 kilometres (six miles) from the crater to Wukirsari, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the peak.
Hundreds of villagers in the Sleman District of Central Java fled on foot and by truck to nearby towns in the wake of the eruption.
But some residents were reluctant to leave.
"It seems like everyone is still reasonably calm," said one resident, who is known by one name Hermand.
"If there is any formal instruction to evacuate then I will leave."
The head of Central Java's disaster management agency warned that funding for the displaced people would run out in five days unless a national disaster was declared.
Cows injured in the eruptions were being cared for at centralised cattle centre in Sleman District.
There have been more than a dozen strong blasts in recent days - including one on Wednesday morning - prompting some scientists earlier to say pressure building up behind a magma dome in the crater was easing.
By nightfall, however, new alarms had been raised.
The danger zone was widened from 10 kilometres (six miles) from the glowing crater to 15 (9) because of the heightened threat.
Soldiers and police blocked all roads leading up the mountain, shooing away television crews and reporters.
The last eruption, which occurred during a heavy downpour, raised Merapi's status to "crisis" condition, according to officials.
Volcanologist Surono, who heads the National Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation centre in Jogjakarta in central Java was worried by the movements showing up on the seismograph equipment on Wednesday afternoon.
"The Merapi volcano was still at the highest level four until 11.04 am (local time)," he said, "but now, the volcano is in critical situation."
Search and rescue teams arrived at camps with villagers evacuated from Klanten District on Wednesday evening.
A makeshift hospital was set up at the Kemalang camp to treat those with respiratory problems.
"Most people have problems due to the ash and dust," said one relief doctor Hendra. "We have treated about 30 people until now including children and one baby, which was only 4 days old but he is ok now."
The camp already houses almost 300 survivors, and numbers are expected to rise in the coming days.
Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, has erupted many times in the last century, killing more than 1,400 people.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 (m) million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific.
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