Victims of Indonesia volcano buried in mass grave

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia - One by one the bodies of dozens killed by Indonesia's most volatile volcano, some too charred ever to be identified, were placed in a mass grave yesterday, as people terrified that another eruption was coming fled the city at the foot of the mountain.

As relatives wept and men recited Islamic prayers, villagers and policemen unloaded the corpses - some in plain wood coffins, others still in the morgue's yellow body bags - from ambulances. They were placed in a massive trench, dug into a green field in the shadow of the volcano, which has claimed 138 lives in two weeks.

The notoriously unpredictable mountain unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century Friday, sending hot clouds of gas, rocks and debris avalanching down its slopes at highway speeds, smothering villages and leaving a trail of charred corpses in its path.

Concerns over the ash it spewed prompted international airlines to cancel flights to Jakarta just days before President Barack Obama's planned trip to Indonesia, his second stop in a 10-day Asian tour.

With more than 90 killed, Friday was the deadliest day at Merapi since 1930.

Islam mandates that the dead be buried quickly, so relatives were given three days to identify their loved ones. To speed up the process, most families chose to have their relatives interred in a mass grave - a common practice in Indonesia following a disaster.

Merapi showed no signs of tiring yesterday, sending out thunderous claps as it shot ash up to four miles into the air, dusting windshields and rooftops hundreds of miles away. - AP