Photo: Tungurahua Volcano in Ecuador
Ecuadorian authorities have issued an Orange alert for populations near the Tungurahua volcano, which is violently awakening from four months of inactivity.
The 16,500 ft. Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador eastern Andes, is located about 135 kilometers (84 miles) south of the capital Quito; it has been active since 1999 but its thermal activity has steadily augmented since the weekend, with ardent magma boulders being spewed some 950 ft. into the air and nearby towns getting covered in ashes.
Authorities have setup emergency refugees for citizens that live close to the Tungurahua, which means “Throat of Fire” in the indigenous Quechua language.
“Since the current eruptive process began very abruptly and has generated since its inception several pyroclastic flows that have hit the top of the volcano’s flanks, and since there is no evidence in the monitoring system indicating the time of generation, the movement, direction and extent of these flows, it is necessary that people do not stay in areas considered high risk, especially in the valleys and ravines that descend the volcano,” the Ecuadorian Institute for Geophysics said in a statement.