DHAKA: Thousands of villagers fled on Sunday after a volcano erupted on Indonesia’s Sumatra island spewing rocks and red-hot ash onto surrounding villages, officials said.

Mount Sinabung in Karo district, North Sumatra province, erupted violently before dawn.

‘More than 3,000 people have been evacuated from areas within a three-kilometre radius of the volcano, and they are all safe,’ Asren Nasution, the head of North Sumatra disaster agency, told media, reports The Straits Times.

Five halls normally used for traditional cultural ceremonies had been converted into shelters for those displaced.

BDST: 1610 HRS, SEPT 15, 2013
RoR/SRS