Mount Marapi eruption: ‘I dodged the rock, it broke my finger’

On Sunday evening, the ground began to tremble as Muhammad Fadli was getting close to Mount Marapi’s summit.

He and three friends took cover behind a stack of mountains when they heard the buzzing.

However, another that was the size of a mortal fist flew in his direction.

He told BBC News Indonesia,” I dodged it with my bare hand, and it broke my finger.” Then another stone broke his knee.

On Sunday, the rumbling sound signaled the start of Mount Marapi’s explosion.

The volcano released a 3 km (9,800 ft ) ash cloud into the atmosphere, enveloping the nearby villages.

There were 22 fatalities, and one hiker is also missing. Twelve additional damaged hikers are receiving medical attention in a hospital.

Muhammad recalled the experience on Tuesday while receiving treatment at Padang Panjang Hospital in West Sumatra. He claimed that shortly after the volcano erupted, dense dark dust clouded his vision. He was completely unable to see his area.

With 17 other companions, he had been beginning their climb of Mount Marapi, also known as the” Mountain of Fire,” on Saturday. But when the volcano began to erupt, four of them—including Muhammad—broke off from the rest of the team.

He claimed that after a rock fell on his mind, one of his friends, whom he was sheltering, nearly lost perception.

The party slowly descended the hill in perilous conditions in an effort to minimize the heat cloud.

He claimed that” We kept trying to move downward by constantly looking for areas in the mountains to defend ourselves.”

In order to notify a shield to their predicament, they hoped to locate telegraph signals.

Muhammad contacted the National Search and Rescue Agency right away after they discovered it and was told to wait at a street knife where they would be picked up.

It may take eight days for the rescuers to show up.

Muhammad, however, claimed that he “finally felt relief” when they did.

Muhammad was carried by firefighters on a bed in anguish after suffering burns, broken bones, and wounds.

He claimed that despite our injuries, my three companions and I were able to succeed.

Of Indonesia’s 127 mountains, Mount Marapi is one of the most effective, despite being well-liked by climbers.

However, Mohammad added that he had previously climbed the mountain and that there were no indications that it was about to emerge when they began their hike at the weekend.

In a digital message from the mountain, Zhafirah Zahrim Febrina, another traveler, begged her mother for assistance. She is currently being treated in a clinic.

The 19-year-old scholar, whose name is Ife, appeared startled, her face burned, and her hair matted with a thick layer of gray ash.

The BBC Indonesian assistance was informed by her aunt Rani Radelani that her sister underwent severe trauma.

Ife was unable to cease crying during the visit. She lamented that the volcanic dust made her body feel warm.

Rani, however, made an effort to persuade her sister never to give up. She claimed that she was frightened, warm, cold, and sleepy. You have to be powerful, you are strong, I told her, Ms. Radelani remarked.

Since 2011, Mount Marapi has been on Alert status, which means that locals are advised not to approach the mountain’s summit within a radius of 3 km ( 1. 8 miles ), but hikers were given permission to do so in July.

The West Sumatra Natural Resource Conservation Agency, or BKSDA, has climbing regulations, including one that forbids anyone from getting close to the volcano.

Before hikers climbed the mountain on the trip, BBC Indonesian was unable to confirm whether these regulations had been implemented there.

The third-largest and northwest of Indonesia’s 18, 000 territories, Sumatra is where Marapi is situated. It has a height of 2, 891 meters ( 485 feet ).

The Indonesian archipelago is located on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where there is a lot of geological and volcanic activity due to the convergence of western plates.