Eruptions weaken at Guatemala's Volcano of Fire

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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.