Thousands flee smoking Indonesian volcano

[dArKeR]

Jakarta - Almost 1 800 people have been evacuated from the slopes of an Indonesian volcano which is spewing dark smoke and about 5 000 others still need to be evacuated, an official said on Friday.

"As of 4.30pm about 1 794 people have been evacuated and there are still almost 5 000 others that still need to be evacuate from the four endangered villages on the slope of Mount Egon," said Dominikus Pareira, secretary of the Sikka district in the eastern island of Flores.

The 1 703m volcano began to spew smoke on Thursday morning and a thick column of black smoke was still pouring out of the crater more than 24 hours later.

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