Eruption at Guatemala's Fuego volcano forces over 700 to evacuate

JOHAN ORDONEZ/ AFP

An ongoing eruption at central Guatemala's Fuego volcano has caused over 700 people living in nearby communities to evacuate, the country's disaster agency CONRED said on Friday.

The volcano, located some 18 kilometres from the city of Antigua Guatemala, was producing ash plumes some 4.8 kilometres high and lava stream that was accumulating around its crater, Guatemala's seismology agency INSIVUMEH added.

Authorities said they continued to monitor the situation.

In a report shortly after midnight on Friday, INSIVUMEH said a lava flow could be seen stretching to around 1.2 km.

"This continues to accumulate in an unstable manner around the crater and in the high parts of the ravines, which could collapse and cause more pyroclastic flows," it said.

Around the size of the US state of Tennessee, the Central American nation is home to 37 volcanoes though many of these are considered dormant or extinct.

Fuego is known for its frequent activity. In June 2018, its most violent eruption in some four decades killed more than 200 people.

More from International News

  • US military targets IS in Syria strikes

    The US military said on Saturday it carried out multiple strikes in Syria targeting ISIS as part of an operation that Washington launched in December after an attack on American personnel.

  • Israeli fire kills three people in Gaza, tension rises

    Israeli fire killed at least three Palestinians in two separate incidents across Gaza, local health authorities said, as tension rises over continued violence.

  • Tens of thousands protest in Minneapolis over fatal ICE shooting

    Tens of thousands of people marched through Minneapolis on Saturday to decry the fatal shooting of a woman by a US immigration agent, part of more than 1,000 rallies planned nationwide over the weekend against the federal government's deportation drive.

  • One dead in Australian bush fires

    At least one person has died in Australia's southeast where bushfires raging for days have razed buildings, cut power to thousands of homes and burned swathes of bushland, police said on Sunday.

Coming Up

  • Non Stop 92

    8:00pm - 10:00pm

  • Dubai 92 Chilled

    10:00pm - Midnight