Indonesian villagers living in the shadow of one of the world's most active volcanoes fled to safety Friday as Mount Merapi erupted, sending a cascade of ash and smoke some 5,000 metres (16,400 feet) into the sky.

The government ordered residents living within a five-kilometre (three-mile) radius of the crater on Java island to leave as ash covered surrounding communities and even reached parts of Yogyakarta, Indonesia's cultural capital some 30 kilometres away.

Officials have shuttered the city's international airport with two dozen flights cancelled following the eruption, which began around 7:30 am (1230 GMT).

It was not clear how many residents living around Merapi had left for local shelters, but around 12,000 people live in its immediate vicinity.

"Everybody ran here immediately," resident Familia Ekawati said from a shelter, adding that there was little warning of the blast before it happened.

"There was no sign it would be erupting."

Some 120 people who were hiking on the mountain when the eruption happened are safe, the government said.

Merapi previously erupted in 2010, killing more than 300 people and forcing 280,000 to flee, in what is considered its most powerful eruption since 1930.

Despite Friday's evacuations, officials played down the danger, saying it was a phreatic eruption, which happens when magma heats up ground water, building up pressure inside the crater.

"This kind of eruption is not dangerous and could happen anytime to an active volcano," national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.

"There have not been any more eruptions (since this morning)."

The volcano's alert status has not been raised.

The Southeast Asian archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands and islets -- and nearly 130 active volcanoes -- is situated on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a vast zone of geological instability where the collision of tectonic plates causes frequent quakes and major volcanic activity.

Hawaii volcano could be building up to big eruption: scientists
Los Angeles (AFP) May 11, 2018 - A Hawaii volcano that has been oozing lava and burping steam for days may be gearing up for a huge eruption, scientists have warned, prompting the closure of Volcanoes National Park on Friday.

It is the newest threat from the Kilauea volcano, which began erupting last Thursday on the US state's Big Island, the National Park Service said.

Scientists say lava levels in the crater are going down, meaning it might be clogging and building up for a mighty blast.

Movement of the molten rock opened space for lava at the summit to drain underground, reducing the height of a lava lake at the summit, US Geological Survey geophysicist Ingrid Johanson told the Los Angeles Times.

But as the lava lake levels fall below the groundwater table, water can start interacting with the magma, heating it up and creating steam, said USGS scientist Donald Swanson.

And if rocks fall from the walls surrounding the magma in the volcano, the rocks can form a dam.

And then, if the steam builds pressure, "it can eventually burst out in an explosion," Swanson said.

Scientists estimate that the lava could interact with the groundwater by the middle of this month.

Mathew Devlen, an American film maker visiting Hawaii as a tourist, said he was awed by it all.

"I just think the power of this is just an amazing thing to witness. And what the people here are going through is tragic," he told AFP.

"I really admire them on how they deal with it, because they know that this is here for them and they respect their island and they're dealing with it in a way I've never seen anyone else deal with," he added.

Kilauea is one of the most active volcanos in the world and one of five on the island.

A magnitude 5 earthquake under its south flank preceded an initial eruption last week and several severe aftershocks followed.

A quake last Friday was measured at magnitude 6.9, the most powerful to hit the islands since 1975.

No one has died, but the flowing lava has destroyed dozens of structures in an area called Leilani Estates.

Hundreds of people have been forced to evacuate their homes because of the lava and the threat of toxic fumes.

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Hawaii volcano destroys over two dozen homes, more threatened
Leilani Estates, United States (AFP) May 7, 2018
More than two dozen homes have been destroyed and dozens more are threatened by red-hot lava seeping from the Kilauea volcano, the most active in Hawaii, civil defense officials said. Evacuation orders remained in place Monday for hundreds of residents of the Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens areas in the eastern part of Hawaii's Big Island. Hawaii's Civil Defense Agency, in its latest update, said 26 homes have been destroyed by lava oozing up from fissures in the ground. Aerial footage ... read more