About 370 residents were moved away from the slopes of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire on Tuesday as red-hot rock and ash flowed down the slopes towards an area hit by a deadly eruption in 2018.
Guatemala’s disaster agency said shelters were opened in the nearby town of Escuintla.
The 3,763-metre high Volcano of Fire is one of the most active in Central America. An eruption in 2018 killed 194 people while another 234 were never found.
The biggest danger from the volcano are lahars, a mixture of ash, rock, mud and debris, that can bury towns.
Known in Spanish as Volcan de Fuego, it is one of three active volcanoes in Guatemala.
Authorities said in 2018 that a communication breakdown between a disaster agency and volcanologists delayed evacuations as gas and ash clouds cascaded down the volcano during its most violent eruption in four decades.
Almost all the victims who perished in 2018 were from poor, coffee-growing hamlets on the mountain’s lower slopes.
By the time Pedro Morales, a field technician at Guatemala’s disaster agency, caught sight of the debris flows, they were already drawing close to houses, authorities said at the time.
