Gushing hot lava from an erupting volcano killed six people sleeping in a beach village in eastern Indonesia on Saturday, after ash and smoke shot up to 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) into the air, a disaster official said. 
 
 Mount Rokatenda in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted early Saturday morning, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Nearly 3,000 people were evacuated from the area on Palue island. The volcano has been rumbling since October 2012. 
 
 The victims included three adults and two children, said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said the age of the sixth person killed was unclear and that the children's bodies had not been recovered from Ponge beach in Rokirole village. 
 
 Indonesia, an archipelago of 240 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines. ||||| Mount Rokatenda volcano erupts in Indonesia, killing six 
 
 Updated 
 
 A volcano eruption in central Indonesia has spewed hot ash into the sky and unleashed torrents of molten lava that engulfed and killed six people sleeping on a beach, officials say. 
 
 Mount Rokatenda, on the island of Palue, sent huge clouds of red-hot ash and rocks two kilometres into the air on Saturday, vulcanology centre head Surono said. 
 
 "There are six victims who were engulfed in hot lava," Johanes Berchmans, head of the disaster management agency in Sikka district, said. 
 
 "They were swept away by hot lava when they were asleep on Punge beach." 
 
 Three adults aged between 58 and 69 were found dead while three children aged between five and eight were also killed, though their bodies had not yet been recovered, he said. 
 
 Surono said rescue efforts were difficult "because the area is still very hot". 
 
 Rokatenda has been showing signs of increased volcanic activity since October, with authorities banning people from any activities within three kilometres of its crater. 
 
 Some 2,000 people had previously been evacuated from the island due to the volcanic activity leaving around 8,000 before Saturday's eruption, Mr Berchmans said. 
 
 "Tomorrow our staff will go from area to area to pick up anyone willing to leave the island." 
 
 The volcano began erupting at 4:27am (local time) on Saturday and it continued for nearly four hours, Surono said. 
 
 Palue is part of Sikka district, which is part of East Nusa Tenggara province. It is just north of Flores island in the sprawling Indonesian archipelago which is made up of more than 17,000 islands. 
 
 Indonesia has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the Ring of Fire between the Pacific and Indian oceans. 
 
 The country's most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions in 2010. 
 
 AFP 
 
 Topics: volcanic-eruption, disasters-and-accidents, indonesia, asia 
 
 First posted
– A volcano erupted on a tiny Indonesian island early today, killing at least six people, reports AP. The eruption of Mount Rokatenda on Palue island blasted ash and smoke more than 6,500 feet in the air and sent lava gushing. Authorities have evacuated about 3,000 people, which would amount to nearly half the island's population. The volcano had been on "high alert" since October, with activities banned in about a 2-mile radius from its crater. It appears that five of the victims, including two children, were within that zone when they were killed, reports AFP.