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Guatemalan authorities have evacuated about a thousand people after Central America’s most active volcano erupted, spewing lava, ash and rocks.
Residents with traumatic memories of a deadly eruption in 2018 sought safety in a temporary shelter after the Fuego volcano – located 35km (22 miles) from the capital, Guatemala City – showed escalating activity on Sunday.
“We heard the rumblings and then a strong eruption. We have faith in God … that the activity of the volcano will calm down soon,” Manuel Cobox, 46, told AFP after leaving his home with his wife and three daughters.
About 125 families, roughly 900 people, were moved to safety from the community of El Porvenir, said Juan Laureano, a spokesperson for Guatemala’s disaster coordination agency, Conred.
Residents of another community in Las Lajitas were also evacuated, the official added.
Buses brought evacuees carrying belongings to a town hall turned into a temporary shelter.
About 30,000 people were potentially “at risk” and should evacuate themselves if necessary, Conred’s head, Claudinne Ogaldes, told a news conference.
Guatemala lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
In 2018, 215 people were killed and a similar number left missing as an eruption of the Fuego volcano sent rivers of lava pouring down its sides, devastating the village of San Miguel Los Lotes.
Amanda Santos, a 58-year-old housekeeper, said that memories of that previous eruption came flooding back when she heard the firefighters’ sirens.
“That’s why we’re afraid. Many people died,” she added.
Another eruption in 2023 from the 3,763-meter (12,346ft) Fuego caused the evacuation of about 1,200 people.
An alert was issued by the authorities on Sunday in order to coordinate the response and preventive measures, Conred said.
The government suspended local school activities and closed a road through the village that links the south of the country to the colonial city of Antigua, a Unesco world heritage site and Guatemala’s most popular tourist destination.
Authorities were monitoring pyroclastic flows – fast-moving currents of hot ash, gas and rock fragments that descend the slopes of a volcano, the Conred spokesman Laureano said.
The state-run Volcanology Institute recommended that air traffic take precautions due to ash that has spread about 50km west of the volcanic cone.
