Airlines cancelled 50 flights on Sunday and 36 flights on Saturday, in an echo of events in Iceland earlier this year when volcanic ash led to thousands of cancellations and transport chaos across Europe.

The death toll from a series of eruptions since October 26 is expected to climb as more bodies are pulled from the volcanic sludge that thundered down on central Java on Friday, the volcano's biggest eruption since the 1870s.

"Fifty flights to and from Jakarta from 15 airlines have been cancelled today for safety reasons, they are mostly flights which pass through Singapore," Soekarno-Hatta International Airport spokesman Sudaryanto said.

The airlines affected include Singapore Airlines, Air Asia, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa.

The spokesman said Jakarta airport, which handles around 900 flights per day, remained open.

The volcano also affected flights to Yogyakarta, Solo and Bandung, cities closer to Merapi in the centre of the main island of Java. Thousands of passengers have been left stranded.

"We called three airlines but all the seats were booked," said Singaporean Raymond Yong, 34, whose Singapore-bound Lufthansa flight was cancelled from Jakarta.

"I don't understand why the airlines have to cancel flights when there are others which are operating just fine. I have to work tomorrow and this is such a major inconvenience."

Three Malaysian Air Force Hercules C-130 transport aircraft flew to Yogyakarta to collect 664 Malaysians stranded there, in a series of flights to take place Saturday and Sunday.

Obama is scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday for a highly anticipated -- and twice delayed -- visit. White House officials said Saturday there was no sign so far of any disruption to the schedule.

Mount Merapi first started erupting on October 26 and a violent blow-out on Friday killed nearly 80 people, incinerating villages up to 18 kilometres away.

Pyroclastic flows or heat clouds of boiling hot gas and rock travelling hundreds of kilometres an hour killed people in their sleep, leaving smouldering ruins full of bodies.

The country's disaster management agency said Sunday the overall death toll from the disaster had been revised down to 117, but it warned the toll would climb as rescuers reached stricken villages.

"The death toll will clearly rise as rescuers are still looking for bodies in the villages," the agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP.

The volcano, a sacred landmark in Javanese tradition, continued to spew clouds of gas and ash on Sunday.

It is 430 kilometres (270 miles) east of Jakarta but only 26 kilometres north of Central Java provincial capital Yogyakarta.

"The eruptions continue to pose a big threat to residents," volcanologist Budi Santoso said.

Dozens of people from one of the worst-hit villages were to be buried in a mass grave in Yogyakarta, disaster management spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

"We will bury them in a place where it's safe. There's no way we will have the burial in their village, as the village is within the 20-kilometre danger zone," he said.

More than 166,000 people are living in cramped temporary shelters after being ordered to evacuate from a 20-kilometre "danger zone", though many were reluctant to abandon their properties and livestock.

The Indonesian archipelago has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the "ring of fire" from the Indian to the Pacific oceans.

The authorities are also dealing with the aftermath of a tsunami which smashed into villages on the remote Mentawai island chain on October 25, killing more than 400 people.

earlier related report
Jakarta flights cancelled after volcano eruption
Jakarta (AFP) Nov 6, 2010 - Airlines cancelled at least 36 flights to and from Jakarta on Saturday, affecting international carriers from Europe to Asia, because of ash from the Mount Merapi volcano, an airport spokesman said.

In echoes of the disruption when thousands of flights were cancelled earlier this year after ash spewed from a volcano in Iceland, several major international carriers were hit in their Indonesian operations.

"Thirty-six flights to and from Jakarta from 11 airlines have been cancelled today. I think it's for safety reasons due to the volcanic ash from Merapi," said Sudaryanto, a spokesman for Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

"Safety is good, but actually the ash hasn't reached Jakarta," he added.

He listed the airlines that cancelled their flights as Singapore Airlines, Air Asia, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, JAL, Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, China Airlines, Korean Air, Tiger Air and the local airline Mandala.

Separately, Cathay Pacific said on its website that flights to and from the Indonesian capital had been delayed and would depart on Sunday, "if conditions improve".

Mount Merapi, on Central Java, first started erupting on October 26, a day after a tsunami killed more than 400 people in a remote area off Sumatra island.

The volcano, which is 430 kilometres (267 miles) from Jakarta, has so far killed 128 people, but this is the first time international flights have been affected.

Singapore Airlines said that flights to and from the capital were "temporarily suspended" while Malaysia Airlines said flights were cancelled at least until Sunday.

"We will continue monitoring the situation, it depends whether the ash clouds still surround the region of Jakarta," a Malaysia Airlines spokeswoman told AFP.

Flights to cities closer to Merapi -- including Yogyakarta, Solo and Bandung -- have also been affected.

US President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on November 9 for a highly anticipated visit. White House officials said Saturday there was no sign so far of any disruption to the schedule.

Rescuers picked through the rubble of destroyed homes Saturday as officials prepared for a mass burial of people killed by the latest violent eruption of Indonesia's most active volcano, which continues to rumble.

Ash, deadly heat clouds and molten debris gushed from the mouth of Mount Merapi and shot high into the sky Friday, triggering chaos on the roads as people fled their homes.

The death toll from Friday's eruption -- its most violent in more than a century -- stood at 85, with scores more suffering severe burns.

Many of the dead were from Argomulyo village, 18 kilometres from the crater, according to emergency response officials and witnesses, with several children under the age of 10 killed.

Dozens from the village were to be buried in a mass grave in Yogyakarta, disaster management spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

"We will bury them in a place where it's safe. There's no way we will have the burial in their village, as the village is within the 20-kilometre danger zone," he said.

Rescuer Utha told AFP as he delivered 10 bodies to the hospital, "I found three bodies: a child, mother and father, still in their bed. They must have been sleeping when the hot ash struck their house.

"We also found a dead man with a phone still in his hand."

Disaster management agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said: "The death toll has risen to 85 people and 289 people are injured."

More than 166,000 people were evacuated after everyone living within the declared "danger zone" had been told to leave their homes immediately, though some were reluctant to abandon their livestock.

Government volcanologist Surono said the volcano was hard to predict.

"The eruption from Merapi has not stopped since November 3, although its intensity has gone down and up again," he said, adding there were no plans to expand the "danger zone".

Merapi killed around 1,300 people in 1930 but experts say the current eruptions are its biggest convulsions since 1872.

A tsunami smashed into villages on the remote Mentawai island chain following a 7.7-magnitude earthquake off the coast on October 25, killing 428 people and leaving 15,000 homeless.

The Indonesian archipelago has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the "ring of fire" from the Indian to the Pacific oceans.

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