© AP PhotoPassengers enter a terminal as an information screen shows cancelled international flights at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2010.
Mount Merapi - International airlines cancelled flights into Indonesia's capital Saturday after a volcano hundreds of kilometres to the east unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century, incinerating villagers as they fled a searing gas cloud.
The number of people killed by Mount Merapi in the past two weeks climbed to 138, as a tiny hospital at the foot of the mountain struggled to cope with survivors, some with burns on up to 95 per cent of their bodies.
The only sign of life in one man, whose eyes were milky grey in colour and never blinked, was the shallow rising and falling of his chest. Others, their lungs choked with abrasive volcanic ash, struggled to breathe.
Indonesia's most volatile mountain unleashed a surge of searing gas, rocks and debris Friday that raced down its slopes at highway speeds, mowing down the slope-side village of Bronggang and leaving a trail of charred corpses in its path.