Gushing hot lava from an erupting volcano killed six people sleeping in a beach village on an eastern Indonesian island yesterday, after ash and smoke shot up to 1.2 miles into the air.

Mount Rokatenda in East Nusa Tenggara province, 1250 miles east of Jakarta, erupted early yesterday morning, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Nearly 3,000 people were evacuated from the area on Palue island, located north of Flores island.

The victims included three adults and two children, said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, adding that the age of the sixth person killed was unclear.

He said that the adults' bodies were recovered from Ponge beach in Rokirole village, but that the children's were not.

Speaking from Bandung city on Java island, a spokesman from Indonesia's volcanology agency said the latest eruption had begun at 4.27am and lasted for nearly four hours.

Surono, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, urged villagers to stay clear of the affected area, saying it was difficult to predict if there would be further eruptions. Surono also said that many villagers had become accustomed to the volcanic activity and ignored the mandatory evacuation order. It was not clear what the victims had been doing in the restricted area when it erupted, he said.

"We have found the bodies of the adults, but we are still looking for the children, and it is difficult because the area is still very hot," said Surono.

Volcanology agency officials said that the volcanic ash from Rokatenda travelled as far as 2,000 metres from the crater.

Rokatenda has been on high alert since October, with authorities banning people from any activities within three kilometres from the crater on the island of around 10,000 inhabitants. Video footage on Indonesia's TV One showed giant plumes of white and grey smoke and ash belching from the volcano into a sunny blue sky.

Palue is about 4km wide and lies a short distance off the north coast of Flores, the main island in East Nusa Tenggara province.

The ACT Alliance humanitarian group reported in April that eruptions in Palue in October and again in March this year had forced hundreds of people from their villages, with significant losses of income in farming, trade and fishing.

Mount Rokatenda is one of about 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago in the Pacific of more than 17,000 islands that's home to some 240 million people. It is known as the "ring of fire", an area prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

At least 350 people died and 250,000 were displaced when Mount Merapi in central Java erupted in 2010.