At least six people died after Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki in eastern Indonesia erupted late on Sunday, spewing explosive plumes of lava and forcing authorities to evacuate several nearby villages, officials said on Monday.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki, located on Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara province, erupted on Sunday at 11.57pm local time, belching a fiery-red column of lava, volcanic ash and incandescent rocks, Hadi Wijaya, a spokesman for The Centre of Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, said on Monday.

“After the eruption, there was power outage and then it was raining and big lightning which caused panic among residents,” he said, adding that the authority had raised the status of the volcano to level IV or the highest.

The agency has recommended a 7km (4.35 miles) radius must be cleared.

The Disaster Management Agency lowered the known death toll from an earlier report of nine, saying it had received updated information from local authorities. Heronimus Lamawuran, a local official at East Flores area, said the eruption had affected seven villages.

The authorities are still gathering data on the number of evacuees and damaged buildings.

Indonesia sits on the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, an area of high seismic activity atop multiple tectonic plates.

This eruption follows a series of eruptions of different volcanoes in Indonesia. In May, a volcano on the remote island of Halmahera, Mount Ibu, caused the evacuation of people from seven villages.

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