Eruptions weaken at Guatemala's Volcano of Fire

erutppt.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Eruptions at Guatemala's Volcano of Fire weakened Friday, one day after powerful blasts sent columns of smoke and ash high into the sky and forced authorities to order a mass evacuation.

The number and intensity of eruptions had dropped to the point that emergency officials said they could allow some of the people ordered to flee on Thursday to return home.

Authorities said they evacuated about one-third of the 33,000 area residents that they were prepared to shelter if eruptions intensified.

"The Volcano of Fire's eruptions have diminished, so depending on its behavior over the next hours people could return to their homes," said David de Leon, spokesman for CONRED, the government disaster mitigation office.

Thursday's eruption, the most powerful in the past decade, buried several villages in ash, said Gustavo Chigna of the National Institute for Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology.

While ash columns from the Thursday eruptions reached 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) above the volcano's crater, on Friday they were only 700 meters (2,300 feet) high, the Institute said.

The smoke columns could be seen from the capital, some 75 kilometers (50 miles) away.

Families were evacuated in sugar mill buses and trucks normally used to transport goods and cattle, Mariano Lam, a spokesman for volunteer firefighters, told AFP Thursday.

But he said that many people decided to stay at their homes "at their own risk."

The 3,763-meter (12,345-foot) high Volcano of Fire is one of three active volcanoes in Guatemala.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/189051" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-c17dcb6ad579add3c014cedc31e156ed" value="form-c17dcb6ad579add3c014cedc31e156ed" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85268083" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.