World Without US

Heavy rains triggered flash floods and caused torrents of cold lava and mud to flow down a volcano’s slopes on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 41 people and leaving more than a dozen others missing, officials have said. Monsoon rains and a major mudslide from a cold lava flow on Mount Marapi caused a river to breach its banks and tear through mountainside villages in four districts in West Sumatra province just before midnight on Saturday. The floods swept away people and submerged more than 100 houses and buildings, national disaster management agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said on Sunday.

Cold lava, also known as lahar, is a mixture of volcanic material and pebbles that flow down a volcano’s slopes in the rain.

As of Monday morning 41 people had been killed in the flooding and another 17 were missing, according to Ilham Wahab, a West Sumatra disaster mitigation agency official.

Three were missing in Agam district and 14 in Tanah Datar, both the worst-hit areas of the flood and home to hundreds of thousands of people, Ilham said.

About half of the dead were found in the village of Canduang in Agam on Sunday, while nine were found in Tanah Datar and eight were found in the region of Padang Pariaman.