Mount Merapi has been increasingly active, with Monday seeing its most powerful eruption in a week. The volatile volcano spewed, searing clouds of gas and debris for several hours, but no new casualties have been reported. So far, 38 people have been killed, since the volcano's first eruption one week ago.

Mount Merapi has erupted many times in the past two centuries, often with deadly results. Almost all the villagers living along Mount Merapi's once-fertile slopes have been evacuated to crowded refugee camps well away from the site.

The volcanology agency says eruptions could continue in the coming weeks, and have kept the alert at the highest level.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono held an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday, upon returning from the Southeast Asia summit in Hanoi.

Indonesia president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said, "We will discuss disaster mitigation including what should we do when we face disasters in the future."

Yudhoyono says he will travel to Yogyakarta province on Tuesday to check on volcano evacuees. He has cancelled a previously scheduled state dinner with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

He implored villagers living around Merapi to obey officials' warnings to stay put in temporary shelters, and not to return home until the volcano cools down.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said, "We are in a country prone to natural disasters, we have to accept it. Disasters such as earthquake, tsunamis, volcano eruption. Geographically we are on tectonic plates. We have to know how to face this and survive."

The president says he plans to travel to the tsunami-hit Mentawai Islands again. He rushed back last week from his Vietnam state visit, to visit tsunami survivors in temporary shelters on South Pagai island.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mount Merapi killed 1,300 people in 1930.