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Airport reopens after eruption

Some things seemed to return to normal in Indonesia Saturday, after a volcano erupted two days before, slinging hot ash into the sky and killing three people. 

The country's national air carrier, Garunda Airlines, resumed service to Central Java, the area covered in the gray ash. The airport in the city of Semarang has reopened.

Six more airports had been closed in the wake of Mount Kelud's outbreak.

The inundation of the air with ash can be dangerous to jet engines. It also forced tens of thousands more out of their homes, the disaster management agency said Friday.

Indonesia: Volcanic ash falls like rain

Of those who died, two perished from smoke inhalation, while the third was hit by a collapsing wall.

Mount Kelud in the eastern part of the main island Java had been spewing ash high into the air, as a smoke plume has risen from out of its crater into the sky.

The government raised its eruption alert to its highest level overnight, and authorities have ordered an evacuation of all residents in a 10-kilometer (6.2 miles) radius of the volcano in eastern Java.

At the height of the crisis Friday, 100,000 people evacuated.

But by late Friday, a webcam from the nation's vulcanology society that is trained on the volcano's crater showed it to be calm.

Mount Kelud last erupted in 2007, but it has recently ramped up activity in the past 10 days.

In 1990, an eruption killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds.

Indonesia is part of the vast "Pacific Ring of Fire," an area of colliding continental plates where powerful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions often occur.