Mount Rokatenda has been spewing hot ash into the air on the tiny island of Palue. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Gushing hot lava from an erupting volcano killed six people sleeping in a beach village in eastern Indonesia on Saturday, after ash and smoke shot up to 2,000 metres into the air, a disaster official said.
Mount Rokatenda in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted early Saturday morning, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Nearly 3,000 people were evacuated from the area on Palue island. The volcano has been rumbling since October 2012.
The victims included three adults and two children, said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said the age of the sixth person killed was unclear and that the children's bodies had not yet been recovered from Ponge beach in Rokirole village.
Video footage on Indonesia's TVOne showed giant plumes of white and gray smoke and ash belching from the volcano into a sunny blue sky. Prior to Saturday's eruption, many residents had already been moved to safer areas.
The disaster agency said the volcano spewed ash and smoke about two kilometres into the air.
The eruption lasted about seven minutes, said Frans Wangge, who heads the volcano's monitoring post. He said the hot lava burned trees around the beach and villages, and made it difficult to reach the area where the victims were killed.
Domi Dange, a Catholic priest helping those who fled to the district town of Maumere on nearby Flores island, said some residents, who had refused to leave when the area was earlier cleared, were sleeping under tents near the beach. However, details about the six people who were killed and where they were located at the time of the eruption remained unclear.
Local authorities, including police and army officials along with members of a search and rescue agency, were heading to tiny Palue island to help with evacuations.
"We will see the best steps to be taken, but clearly they have to be evacuated," said Yoseph Ansar Rara, chief of Sikka District, which oversees the island. He said those already evacuated had agreed to be relocated to Flores island.
Mount Rokatenda is one of about 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that's home to some 240 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines.
Mount Rokatenda, also known as the Paluweh volcano. 
Rescuers are still searching for the bodies of three children, presumed dead, after an eruption by an Indonesian volcano on Saturday.

Located on the  Island,  threw rock and ash into the sky causing local destruction.  spilled onto the beach, killing three adults and three children in their sleep. Rescuers have recovered the bodies of the adults but the children’s remains have still not been found.

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Tini Thadeus, head of the local disaster agency, says he is pessimistic about recovering the bodies. Due to the remains being buried under hot material, Thadeus believes they will be difficult to reach.

Indonesian rescuer Bakri Kari raises more doubt about the recovery as he describes the scene, saying that it was "tough" walking in the area as the ground is "covered in ash 10 to 20 centimeters thick." Despite this, the search for the bodies continues.

When the volcano became active, 2,000 people evacuated the island, while 8,000 remained.


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