The Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador is billowing ash into the sky and sending hot pyroclastic flows surging down its slopes, causing authorities to evacuate nearby villages.
Hugo Yepez, director of Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute, said no one had been injured nor any village damaged. He said people within eight miles of the volanco’s centre were evacuated on Saturday as a precaution.
An eruption of ash from Tungurahua last May caused a one-day shutdown of the international airport at Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil. Thousands of people in near the volcano were also evacuated.
The volcano is 95 miles southeast of Quito, the capital. In 2006, an eruption buried entire villages and killed at least four people. — Sapa-AP