Tourist dies after falling into volcano while posing for photo in Indonesia

A Chinese woman died tragically on Saturday after slipped and fell into a crater while posing at Indonesia's volcano park in East Java.

31-year-old Huang Lihong was on a guided tour of Ijen with her husband when they climbed to the edge of the crater despite the tour guide's warnings, as per a report in The New York Post.

It reportedly took the rescuers nearly two hours to retrieve her body.

While Lihong maintained a distance of around 2-3 km from the edge while posing initially, she soon started moving backwards to capture a better picture.

However, as she inched backwards, she stepped on her clothes and fell off the cliff from a height of 75 m, The death has reportedly been classified as an accident.

Known for its 'blue flames', the Ijen volcano complex hosts several other craters and has become a tourist spot for hikers and nature enthusiasts.

Recently, a view of the Ijen had become viral on the internet owing to the electric-blue flames erupting from a volcano.

While the lava in this volcano is like any other, it derives its blue colour from the sulphur pockets in the rock. When this sulphur comes in contact with the oxygen in the air, it ignites giving an illusion of the lava being blue in colour when infact, it is the surface of the molten rock that gets covered in blue flame.

This is not the first time a tourist has died here. In February this year, a Polish touris died while trekking at the Ijen Crater Nature Tourism Park. However, the cause of the death was reportedly suspected to be tiredness and a history of illness.

There are around 400 active volcanoes in Indonesia. Recently the country had to shut a provincial airport and evacuate hundreds of people from the vicinity of the Ruang volcano after it belched explosive plumes of lava, rocks and ash for days, officials, declaring the highest alert on the situation. More than 800 people were evacuated from the area, with authorities widening the evacuation zone further after the volcanology agency raised the alert status.

Last year in December, more than 20 people were killed after Marapi, one of Sumatra's most active volcanoes, erupted and spewed grey clouds of ash as high as 3 km (2 miles), only to erupt again in January this year.

(With Reuters inputs)