Asia

Three Dead After Volcano Erupts On Indonesian Island

Published

3 days ago

May 8, 2026

Three people hiking on Indonesia’s Mount Dukono have died after the volcano erupted on Friday morning.

Videos and pictures of the eruption show the volcano, located on the North Maluku island, spewing a column of ash stretching 10 km (six miles) into the sky.

The three victims were part of a group of 20 Singaporeans and Indonesians hiking on the mountain despite restrictions. The rest of the group was eventually located by rescuers and evacuated from the mountain.

The volcano has erupted more than 200 times since last March. Officials had previously issued warnings against climbing the mountain due to safety concerns.

The latest eruption took place at 07:41 local time (22:41 GMT Thursday), when there were several people on the mountain on early morning hikes.

Indonesian officials said two Singaporeans and one local resident from the nearby city of Ternate had died. Both of the foreign victims are believed to be male, with one aged 30 and the other 27. The local victim is said to be a female, but no more details were given.

The bodies of the three deceased are still on the mountain, according to North Halmahera police chief Erlichson Pasaribu – though most of the hiking group have been safely evacuated and sent to hospital.

Two members of the group, who are porters, stayed behind on the mountain to help rescue workers locate the bodies.

On Friday afternoon, Mount Dukono was still emitting volcanic material from its crater, according to one local resident assisting rescuers.

Aldy Salabia told BBC Indonesian that they were at a local shelter on the mountain preparing for the rescue operation.

“From the shelter, we can see ash and rock material continuously being ejected,” he said.

Erlichson said that retrieval of the bodies had been hampered by repeated eruptions, difficult terrain and strong blasts from the volcano.

The operation to reach the volcano’s crater – where the bodies of the victims are though to be located – was paused as night fell on Friday evening, with Erlichson saying it would resume on Saturday.

Besides the 20-member hiking group, eyewitness accounts indicate there were other hikers on the mountain as well.

One guide who was on Mount Dukono with two clients at the time of the eruption told BBC Indonesian that he believed high pressure had been building up inside the volcano for several days.

“When Dukono hasn’t erupted for a few days, you have to be careful,” he said, describing the eruption as “major” and “very strong”.

As they were hiking up, he saw one group of people at the edge of the crater, as well as another group about 50m from the crater who were filming drone videos.

Then, “I heard deep tremors. So I decided to immediately descend with the guests. And in the end, the three of us were safe.”

As they were descending, he saw many hikers were still at the summit, he added.

Indonesian officials said they had issued warnings against climbing Mount Dukono, which were widely disseminated through social media as well as on banners at trail entrances, but some hikers had ignored them.

Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, Barsanas, said that initial discussions among authorities found there may have been “possible negligence by tourism operators or individuals” who proceeded with climbing Mount Dukono despite the warnings.

“The government is continuing to gather information to establish a complete account of the incident,” it said.

Mount Dukono is currently listed at level two out of the Volcanological Survey of Indonesia’s four-tier volcano alert system, which indicates increased activity and a need for caution.

The agency said that since December 2024, it has recommended tourists and climbers to refrain from activities within a 4km radius of Mount Dukono’s main crater, where there are threats of ejected rocks, ash and lava.

Still, that has not deterred hikers from heading up the 1,335m-tall mountain.

“Dukono is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia,” said Siti Sumilah Rita Susilawati, Head of Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG).

Speaking to reporters, Susilawati said the no-go zone was a “recommendation” that the agency made to local governments, adding that they had “communicated it with the local community.”

Dr Daryono, from the Indonesian Association of Disaster Experts, said that the incident “once again demonstrated that active volcanoes can never be treated as ordinary tourist destinations.”

“Dukono is a mountain with almost continuous eruptive activity, so any violation of the danger zone carries a fatal risk,” he told the BBC.

“On social media, the public often sees videos of climbers or influencers who successfully ascend and return safely. Such content slowly creates a distorted risk perception.

“The public only sees those who successfully descend and post dramatic content, while potential threats that did not occur at the time become invisible. The real danger remains and could emerge at any time in the form of ejections of incandescent material, thick ashfall, volcanic gas, or sudden explosive eruptions.”

Additional reporting by Koh Ewe

International

Vietnam Floods Leave At Least 90 Dead, 12 Missing

Published

6 months ago

November 23, 2025

AladdynKing

At least 90 people have died and another 12 are missing after days of heavy rain in Vietnam led to flooding and landslides.

The Vietnamese government says 186,000 homes have been damaged across the country, with more than three million livestock swept away. Officials estimate there has been hundreds of millions of pounds worth of damage.

The mountainous province of Dak Lak has been severely impacted, recording more than 60 deaths since 16 November, according to news agency AFP.

The floods are the latest extreme weather event to hit Vietnam in recent months, after typhoons Kalmaegi and Bualoi hit the country within weeks of each other.

Some 258,000 people were without power on Sunday morning and sections of major motorways and train tracks were blocked, officials said.

Military and police resources have been mobilised to assist in the hardest hit areas.

The government said the most severe impacts had been observed in five provinces – Quang Ngai, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Khanh Hoa, and Lam Dong – clustered in south and south-central Vietnam.

Mach Van Si, a farmer in Dak Lak, told AFP: “Our neighbourhood was completely destroyed. Nothing was left. Everything was covered in mud.”

Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính chaired a virtual emergency meeting on Sunday morning from South Africa, where he had been attending the G20 summit.

Rainfall had exceeded 1.5m (5ft) in several areas leading up to Friday, with some areas surpassing a 5.2m level not seen since 1993. The rain is forecast to ease in the coming days.

Scientists say that Vietnam has been left more exposed to extreme weather events by human-driven climate change, which has made typhoons stronger and more frequent.

bbc.com

International

At Least Three Killed In Ukrainian Drone Strikes In Russia

Published

9 months ago

August 2, 2025

AladdynKing

Ukrainian drone strikes killed three people and wounded two others overnight in western Russia, regional governors said on Saturday.

One woman was killed and two other people were wounded in an attack on an enterprise in Penza, the region’s governor, Oleg Melnichenko, wrote on Telegram.

An elderly man was killed inside a house that caught fire due to falling drone debris in the Samara region, governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev posted on Telegram.

In the Rostov region, a guard at an industrial facility was killed after a drone attack and a fire in one of the site’s buildings, acting Rostov governor Yuri Sliusar said.

“The military repelled a massive air attack during the night,” destroying drones over seven districts, Sliusar posted on Telegram.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems had destroyed 112 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory – 34 over the Rostov region – in a nearly nine-hour period, from Friday night to Saturday morning.

In Ukraine’s central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, overnight Russian drone attacks left three people wounded, governor Sergiy Lysak wrote on Telegram.

Several buildings, homes and cars were damaged, he said.

Russian forces have claimed advances in Dnipropetrovsk, recently announcing the capture of two villages there, part of Moscow’s accelerated capture of territory in July, according to AFP’s analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Kyiv denies any Russian presence in the Dnipropetrovsk area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire in the more than three-year conflict, said Friday that he wanted peace but that his demands for ending Moscow’s military offensive were “unchanged”.

Those demands include that Ukraine abandon territory and end ambitions to join NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said only Putin could end the war and renewed his call for a meeting between the two leaders.

“The United States has proposed this. Ukraine has supported it. What is needed is Russia’s readiness,” he wrote on X.

france24.com

International

VIDEO: India Rejects Pakistan Army Claim It Was Behind Deadly Attack

Published

11 months ago

June 29, 2025

AladdynKing

India has rejected allegations by Pakistan that militants backed by Delhi were behind a deadly car bomb attack that killed at least 13 soldiers on Saturday.

Pakistani officials said a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a military convoy in the north-western tribal region of Pakistan’s North Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan.

Dismissing Pakistan’s accusation, spokesman for India’s ministry of external affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, posted on X: “We reject this statement with the contempt it deserves”.

The attack has been claimed by a suicide bomber wing of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, a faction of the Pakistan Taliban.

Pakistan’s army, however, said the attack was carried out by militants backed by India, without providing evidence.

“In this tragic and barbaric incident, three innocent civilians including two children and a woman also got severely injured,” the Pakistani army said in a statement.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the “cowardly act”.

Relations between the two nations have long been strained, but tensions deepened in April after a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir left 26 people dead.

India blamed Pakistan for sheltering members of a militant group it said were behind the attack, and the incident brought the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of another war.

In May, India launched a series of airstrikes, targeting sites it called “terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir”.

Pakistan denied the claim that these were terror camps and also responded by firing missiles and deploying drones into Indian territory.

The hostilities continued until 10 May when US President Donald Trump announced that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire”.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in terrorist incidents following the collapse of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Pakistani Taliban in November 2022.

Watch the video below: