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| Mount Merapi volcano spews out ash clouds. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features |
Women screamed and children cried as they were loaded into trucks while rocks and debris rained from the sky.
Several abandoned homes were set ablaze and the carcasses of incinerated cattle littered the scorched slopes.
No new casualties were reported immediately after the booming explosion that lasted more than an hour.
"This is an extraordinary eruption, triple times the first on 26 October," said a state volcanologist.
Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated from Mount Merapi, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, since it began erupting just over a week ago, killing 38 people, most dying from severe burns.
The danger zone was widened today from 10kms (six miles) from the glowing crater to 15kms (9 miles) because of the heightened threat.
"I [didn't] think of anything else except to save my wife and son. We left my house and everything," said Tentrem Wahono, 50, who lives in Kaliurang village, about six miles from the peak.
He and his family fled on a motorbike, "racing with the explosive sounds as the searing ash chased us from behind".
The last eruption has raised Merapi's status to "crisis" condition, said Andi Arief, a staff member at the presidential office dealing with disaster and social assistance.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanos because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific Ocean.
As a reminder of that, a 6.1-magnitude quake hit waters off the eastern province of Papua today, though causing no known damage or casualties.
The volcano's initial blast occurred less than 24 hours after a towering tsunami slammed into remote islands on the western end of the country, sweeping entire villages out to sea and killing at least 428 people.
In both cases relief operations are expected to take weeks, possibly months.
More than 800 miles west of the volcano, helicopters and boats were delivering aid to tsunami survivors in the most distant Mentawai islands, which lie almost directly over the fault that spawned the 2004 Indian Ocean monster quake and wave.
There has been talk in recent days about relocating villagers away from vulnerable coastlines.
"I'm all for it," said Regen, who lives on Pagai Utara island and goes by one name. "We're all terrified now, especially at night, and wouldn't mind moving further inland."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/03/mount-merapi-erupts-new-evacuations