The death toll¹ following the eruption² of Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano has risen to 25, officials say.

印尼官员称，默拉皮火山爆发死亡人数已上升至25人。

Rescuers carry victims away in a landscape turned to white by dust

Experts told the BBC that the ash levels had subsided³（平息，减弱） a little, but that their readings suggested there would be more volcanic⁴ activity soon.

Thousands fled their homes on Tuesday as ash spewed（喷涌） out of the volcano, turning the landscape white.

But many people refused to leave, and rescuers fear the death toll may rise.

One rescuer, Christian⁵ Awuy, told the BBC that he feared up to 50 could have been killed.

He said although 10,000 people had been evacuated⁶（疏散，撤离） , many had stayed behind.

The AFP news agency reported local officials as saying the man known as the volcano's spiritual（精神的，心灵的） gatekeeper, Mbah or grandfather Marijan, was among the dead. For many Javanese, Merapi is a sacred site.

The agency said he was found dead in his house about 4km (2.5 miles) from the summit, but this has not been independently confirmed.

A cameraman（摄影师） for Reuters was quoted as saying: "Several houses and cattle have been burned by the hot cloud from the mountain. All the houses are blanketed（覆盖，遮蔽） in ash, completely white. The leaves have been burned off the trees."

Endita Sri Andiyanti, a spokeswoman at the main local hospital, said 25 people were dead and more than a dozen others were being treated for injuries.

Government vulcanologist Subandrio told the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta that the volcanic activity appeared to have subsided based on the recordings⁷ of the levels of hot ash in the air.

However, he said he expected more eruptions⁸ soon, although there was no way of telling when or how big they would be.

Another vulcanologist, Ed Venski of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, told the BBC's World Today that pressure building up under a "lava⁹（火山岩浆） dome¹⁰" inside the volcano threatened further devastation¹¹.

"This the largest hazard at Merapi. It builds up as a sticky lava, where it builds up into a dome.
 
"At some point either there's an explosion from below that causes it to collapse¹², or a simple addition of lava causes it to collapse. And this sends large, hot blocks of solidified¹³ lava down the slopes," he said.

This "pyroclastic flow（火山碎屑流） " is highly dangerous both in its heat and the poison of the gases.

Experts hope the volcano, some 500km (310 miles) south-east of Jakarta on Indonesia's most heavily populated island, Java, will release steam slowly rather than erupt in a big blast.

Authorities are continuing to move away thousands of local villagers living near the volcano, but it is proving to be difficult.

Many villagers ignored warnings because they were reluctant to leave homes and farms unattended.

The thousands that were evacuated are being held in makeshift（临时的） emergency shelters with straw sleeping mats and bags of clothes and food.

One of the dead was a two-month-old baby. Many victims at a local hospital had severe burns.