At least 25 people, including three children, have been killed and nearly 300 injured on Sunday in the most violent eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano in more than four decades, officials said.
Fuego volcano, whose name means “fire” in English, spewed an 8km (five-mile) stream of lava and belched a thick plume of black smoke and ash that rained onto the capital and other regions.
Sergio Cabanas, the general secretary of Guatemala’s Conred disaster agency, said on the radio: “It’s a river of lava that overflowed its banks and affected the Rodeo village. There are injured, burned and dead people.”
Mario Cruz, spokesman for the volunteer firefighter corps, said: “We have seven confirmed dead, four adults and three kids, who were already taken to the morgue.” He added that 3,100 people had evacuated the area so far. The disaster agency later updated the death toll to 25.
President Jimmy Morales said he had convened his ministers and was considering declaring a state of emergency in the departments of Chimaltenango, Escuintla and Sacatepequez.
It is the second time the volcano has erupted this year, setting off loud explosions and spewing ash into the sky. Soot blanketed cars and houses in the nearby villages of San Pedro Yepocapa and Sangre de Cristo.
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