The Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador is billowing ash into the sky and sending super-hot pyroclastic flows surging down its slopes, causing authorities to evacuate nearby villages.
Hugo Yepez, director of Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute, says no one has been injured nor any village damaged. He says people within 8 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.
The volcano is 95 miles (150 kilometres) southeast of Quito, the capital. In 2006, an eruption buried entire villages and killed at least four people.