The eruption of Indonesia's reawakened Mount Merapi intensified to its highest level today with red-hot boulders and searing gas clouds surging down its slopes.

The evacuation of villages surrounding the crater has been stepped up but some 200 people still refuse to comply with urgent warnings to leave, citing ancient mystical beliefs as they attempt to assuage the volcano's fury with incense and ritual.

After years of inactivity, the mountain near Yogyakarta in the heart of the densely-populated Java Island began rumbling several weeks ago, belching out hot ash and forcing lava up into an unstable fiery cone.

The peak reached the highest category of threat on Saturday, leading to the mandatory evacuation of some 4,500 locals. Today's intensification of activity saw clouds of volcanic gas, rock fragments and other pyroclastic debris thrown 2.5 miles (4km) down the mountain’s western slopes.

"I am panicking this time," said Katimi, a mother of three and one of thousands of people who boarded vans and trucks to seek shelter in mosques, government buildings and schools. "Merapi appears angry."

Hospitals and emergency clinics were preparing for the worst. Merapi, the most active of 129 live volcanoes in Indonesia and whose name means "Mountain of Fire", sent out a deadly cloud of gas that killed 60 people in 1994, and about 1,300 people died in a 1930 eruption.

The clouds of volcanic ash, gas and debris pose the greatest threat to those who live on the slopes. After escaping the crater the gas rushes downhill like a glowing avalanche, incinerating anything in its path.

Widi Sutikno, who is co-ordinating the government’s emergency operation, commended those who recognised the danger and left. "I guess they didn’t want to die after all," he said.

Around 200 villagers living within the danger zone have still refused to leave. Some believed that the supernatural world will warn them of any danger. Volcanologists were monitoring the increasing activity by satellite.

Edi, 30, said: "People around here believe that if Merapi is going to explode there will be a sign, a magical sign. Either it comes in a dream or in the form of a hallucination."

"Only God knows what will happen, we can only ask for his protection," said Riskani, as her eight-year-old son played with toy trucks in a dusting of volcanic ash. "If it gets worse, we will leave. But for now, we are staying in this village," she said.

"I am calm because I have experienced this many times before,'' said Romadi, a 60-year-old villager whose house was covered in volcanic ash. "Officials have told us to leave, but I know that it is not that dangerous.''

Although most Indonesians are Muslim, many also follow animist beliefs and worship ancient spirits. At full moon, they may trek to the crater’s rim to throw in rice, jewellery and live animals to appease the spirits of the volcano.

In one of the villages in the shadow of Merapi, holy men lit incense and set rice, fruit and vegetables floating down a river in a ceremony they believed would appease the spirits and prevent an eruption.

"It's bound to help,'' Parsi aid after the ceremony. "Everyone around here believes in this. It is in our blood."

An 80-year-old man appointed by the nearby royal court as the spiritual guardian of Merapi said he was not leaving, even though his house is clearly within the mandatory evacuation zone.

"There is no risk," Maridjan said outside his home just 4 miles (6km) from the crater: "I am still waiting here."

Maridjan’s refusal to go is angering local authorities in charge of evacuation efforts who say he is setting a bad example and preventing other villagers from leaving.

Some 18,000 people on the mountain’s lowest slopes have not yet been ordered to leave, but could be in coming days as vulcanologists warn of an imminent full-scale eruption.

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