A clip shared with AFP showed a rescue worker with a flashlight strapped to his head piggybacking a hiker, who moans in pain and says “God is greatest” as she is led to safety in the darkness of night.
Zhafirah Zahrim Febrina, one of the rescued hikers, is shown in a video message from the volcano desperately appealing to her mother for help.
The 19-year-old student appeared shocked, her face burnt and her hair matted with thick grey ash.
“Mom, help Ife. This is Ife’s situation right now,” she said, referring to her nickname.
She is now in a nearby hospital with her father and uncle after being trapped on the mountain on a hiking trip with 18 school friends.
“She is going through a tremendous trauma,” said her mother Rani Radelani, 39.
“She is affected psychologically because she saw her burns, and she also had to endure the pain all night.”
RESCUE HALTED BY ERUPTIONS
Local rescue agency spokesperson Jodi Haryawan said the rescue efforts had been broken up by sporadic eruptions but the search was still going despite the risks.
“Once it was safer they continued the search. So the search was not halted,” he told AFP.
Rudy Rinaldi, head of the West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency, told AFP some of the rescued hikers had suffered burns.
“Those who are injured were the ones who got closer to the crater,” he said.
At least eight people suffered burns, one had burns and a fracture and another had a head wound, according to a list of those found from Basarnas, a national search and rescue agency, seen by AFP.
Ahmad Rifandi, an official at the Mount Marapi monitoring station, told AFP that ash rain was observed after the eruption and had reached Bukittinggi, the third-largest city in West Sumatra that has a population of more than 100,000.
The plume of smoke and ash blocked out the sun after the eruption and coated nearby cars, scooters and ambulances.
Marapi is on the second alert level of Indonesia’s four-step system and authorities have imposed a three-kilometre exclusion zone around its crater.
The Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.
The Southeast Asian country has nearly 130 active volcanoes.
As the search goes on for the missing 12 hikers, Febrina’s family was relieved she was one of the lucky ones.
Good news arrived in the form of a livestream on video app TikTok by a member of the rescue services, in which Radelani saw her visibly shaken daughter.
“It felt incredible, praise God she has been found,” Radelani said.
“If she asks me to allow her to climb a mountain, I’ll say no.”
Source: CNA
