Mexico's Popocatepetl Spews Ash

May 22, 2002

MEXICO CITY- A small explosion at Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano caused a light ashfall Wednesday on nearby communities, officials said.

The 17,886-foot Popocatepetl volcano has been intermittently erupting since December 1994.

Scientist have recorded low-level tremors within the volcano, 40 miles southeast of Mexico City, and several clouds of gas have escaped from its crater since the explosion Tuesday, according to Mexico's National Center for the Prevention of Disasters.

Scientists at the University of Colima, meanwhile, were predicting a large explosion at Mexico's Volcano of Fire, 300 miles west of Mexico City.

The volcano spit bits of lava and ash on Tuesday, and some 300 people have been evacuated from five small hamlets near the volcano's crater.

The 12,533-foot volcano continued to register tremors Wednesday, and scientists said there was still the risk of an eruption somewhere between the size of those in 1999 and in 1913.

The 1999 eruptions sent glowing rock three miles down the volcano's slopes and sent up a plume of ash more than 5 miles high, while the 1913 explosion created a crater 1,650 feet deep and blasted fast-moving flows of hot ash down the volcano's slopes, raining ash on Guadalajara, 75 miles to the north. Volcanologists consider the Colima volcano to be one of the most active and potentially the most destructive of Mexico's volcanoes.

It has erupted violently dozens of times since its first recorded eruption in 1560.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-sa/2002/may/22/052204804.html