At least 7 dead in Sumatra's Mount Sinabung eruption

SUMATRA , Indonesia, May 22 (UPI) -- A volcano eruption in western Indonesia killed at least seven people over the weekend and is still spewing ash, hampering rescue efforts.

Those killed were farming in an area declared unsafe due to the proximity to Mount Sinabung, the BBC reported.

Two other people are in critical condition as officials warn the volcano could erupt again, USA Today reported. The same volcano killed more than a dozen people when it erupted in 2014. It also erupted in 2010 for the first time in 400 years.

Rescue teams are searching the area for more victims who may have been killed or burned by the hot gas and ash clouds released in the eruption.

Mount Sinabung, located in North Sumatra province began spewing ash as high as two miles on Saturday, according to National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, who said ash tumbled down the slopes for up to three miles west in to a river.

Photos taken in the village Sunday showed evidence of a fast-moving cloud of hot volcanic gas, rocks and ash known as pyroclastic flows. Dead animals could be seen lying on the ground near scorched homes and smoking plants and trees as soldiers set up road blocks and people carried their belongings and their farm animals away from the area.

This volcano is among some 120 active in Indonesia and prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, volcanos and fault lines lining the Pacific Basin.