Indonesian villagers living in the shadow of one of the worlds most active volcanoes fled to safety Friday as Mount Merapi erupted, sending a cascade of ash and smoke some 5,000 metres (16,400 feet) into the sky.
The government ordered residents living within a five-kilometre (three-mile) radius of the crater on Java island to leave as ash covered surrounding communities and even reached parts of Yogyakarta, Indonesia's cultural capital some 30 kilometres away.