Search teams hunting for two men who became trapped in one of Mount Merapi's intermittent explosive blasts discovered two bodies today.

The men were found dead beneath 6ft of smouldering debris in one of the many emergency bunkers dotted on the slopes of Indonesia's restless volcano.

One had climbed into a steel bath in an attempt to escape the 400C cloud of gas and ash. Both had been baked alive.

The find was confirmed by Widi Sutikno, head of relief operations, this evening. Of the man immersed in the bath he said: "He was trying to cool down."

The two men had been helping people to evacuate their village yesterday when the pyroclastic flow of gas and molten lava suddenly spewed from the volcano's cone. Rescuers tried desperately to dig them out yesterday, their spades melting in the fierce heat, but were unable to reach them by nightfall.

The men are the first human casualties since Mount Merapi flared back into activity in April.

Scientists had thought that the 9,700ft volcano in Central Java - whose name means Mountain of Fire - was calming after weeks of fierce activity. After yesterday's blast, however, its status was raised back up to the highest level suggesting a full eruption is imminent.

Today, it spewed three separate heat clouds, the most dramatic of which stretched for 3 miles (5km) down the south-eastern slope.

Villagers who live and farm on the fertile soil around the cone's summit have been on standby for a full evacuation for several weeks. Their fear has been hieghtened by the loss of 5,000 lives in an earthquake which rocked the nearby city of Yogyakarta last month.

About 15,000 villagers who had spent a week sheltering in makeshift camps in safe areas had just begun to return when the heat clouds re-appeared on Wednesday.

Some told of their surprise today that the two men had decided to ride out the eruption in the bunker - designed to offer protection from passing heat clouds - rather than fleeing to safety downhill.

A friend of one of the victims sobbed: "His motorcycle was on stand-by. He shouldn’t have entered the bunker."

Merapi has shown fluctuating volcanic activity since mid-May but appeared to stabilise after a lava dome that had been forming at its peak partially collapsed last Friday.

Its deadliest eruption was in 1930 when more than 1,300 people were killed.

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