Indonesian Rescue Team Finds Body Of Last Missing Hiker On Volcano

The last hiker missing after a volcanic eruption on Indonesia's Mount Marapi was found dead today, rescuers said. According to a BBC report, the final hiker's body was recovered on Wednesday by Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency. 

''The joint search and rescue team has found one victim of the Mount Marapi eruption, who is now in the process of being evacuated,'' Abdul Malik, head of the Padang Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters on Wednesday evening.

Basarnas, the national search and rescue agency, earlier identified the final hiker as a woman.

Notably, Mount Marapi on the island of Sumatra spewed an ash tower 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) -- taller than the volcano itself -- into the sky on Sunday.

Hundreds of rescuers worked for days to find the missing hikers, who had been carried down the mountain in bodybags in an arduous search effort hampered by further eruptions and bad weather that forced workers to intermittently take shelter.

Some of the 75 hikers on the mountain during the eruption were found alive and carried down, with multiple suffering burns and fractures. Meanwhile, the dead were carried down the mountain in bodybags over several days, rescue officials said.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide. Mount Marapi, which means "Mountain of Fire", is the most active volcano on Sumatra Island and one of the archipelago's nearly 130 active volcanoes.

Officials monitoring the volcano detected at least five more eruptions on December 5 as the search went on. Fifty-two people were rescued since the eruption and some of the survivors have described their panic after it started.

"I was zig-zagging, going down around 30 to 40 metres" to a trekking post, Ridho, 22, told AFP from a bed in a nearby hospital.

"The eruption sounded loud, I took a look behind and then immediately ran away as everyone did. Some jumped and fell. I took cover behind the rocks, there were no trees there."