The 15 victims simply couldn’t outrun the searing debris that billowed out of Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung.

Plumes of ash had spewed more than a mile into the sky Saturday and descended in superheated clouds. Scalding ash up to 700 degrees in temperature raced down the slope in just two to three minutes.

By the end of several eruptions, at least 15 people had been killed, a government official told CNN. It was the first time Mount Sinabung’s volcanic output had resulted in deaths, the Jakarta Post reported.

The victims, and at least three other injured people, were all found in Sukameriah, a village close to the volcano’s crater, disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told CNN.

Eruptions at Mount Sinabung are becoming common. After about 400 years of minimal volcanic activity there, Sinabung erupted in 2010. It has been emitting gas since September.

The newest volcanic activity has forced people to evacuate 16 villages, the Jakarta Post reported. At least 30,000 people have been temporarily housed at 42 evacuation centers, according to Billy Sumuan, the emergency response director in Indonesia for the humanitarian group World Vision.