Dozens of victims of Indonesia’s erupting Mount Merapi who were killed by heat clouds are to be buried in a mass grave in Yogyakarta an official said.
Indonesia’s most active volcano, also known as the Mountain of Fire, has been erupting since late last month and has so far killed a total of 120 people, including 77 on Friday.
“We will have a mass burial for dozens of people killed in Argomulyo village,” disaster management spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
“We will bury them in a place where it’s safe. There’s no way we will have the burial in their village, as the village is within the 20-kilometre danger zone,” he said.
Heat clouds burnt scores of people, including children, in Argomulyo village, 18 kilometres from the spewing crater.
The ranks of evacuees increased to more than 160,000 people after officials widened the danger zone from 15 to 20 kilometres early on Friday.
Mr Nugroho said evacuees had ample supplies of food and water, but they needed more temporary bathrooms and facilities to wash their clothes.
