Thread: Ecuador and Guatemala volcanoes erupt, Tropical Storm

May 30, 2010

Ecuador and Guatemala volcanoes erupt

In Ecuador, the Tungurahua volcano exploded into action on Friday, forcing evacuation of at least seven villages and closing down the airport and public schools in Guayaquil, the country’s largest and most populated city.

On the same day in Guatemala the Pacaya volcano erupted killing three and prompting President Alvaro Colom to declare a 15-day state of emergency. Guatemala’s La Aurora International Airport was closed because the runways and surrounding areas had to be cleaned of ash.

The airport closures were reminiscent of the massive blanket of ash Iceland’s Eyjafjoell volcano spewed out last month causing the biggest aerial shutdown in Europe since WWII. According to the International Air Transport Association the number of passengers in Europe slumped 11.7% in April and a global drop of 2.4%. As a result airliners have suffered tens of millions of euros in lost revenues.

Even though Eyjafjoell has not spewed ash since the beginning of the week, experts say it is too early to declare the end of the volcano’s eruption.

Meanwhile, a report from the University College London institute pointed out Friday that Eyjafjoell’s neighboring volcano Katla could erupt in the near future.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=220382

Volcano ash, storm prolong Guatemala airport closure

Posted: 30 May 2010 0741 hrs

GUATEMALA CITY: Guatemala's La Aurora International Airport will remain shut for another five days as cleaning the ash fallout from the Pacaya volcano has been complicated by rains from Tropical Storm Agatha, officials said on Saturday.

The airport was closed on Friday by huge ash clouds hovering over Guatemala City and surrounding areas that Pacaya spewed out in a new eruption since it became active on Wednesday.

"The airport will remain closed at least five days," presidential spokesman Ronald Robles told reporters.

Civil aviation officials said they needed the time to remove a blanket of ash centimetres thick from the runways, adding that driving rains from Agatha as it churned toward Central America made the job more difficult.

The Pacaya eruption, the biggest of the active volcanoes since 2006, has so far killed two people, including a television reporter covering the event, and forced the evacuation of some 2,000 people living near the volcano, some 50 kilometres south of the capital.

President Alvaro Colom declared a 15-day state of emergency around the volcano and is mulling extending it to the rest of the country as Agatha heads straight for Guatemala with 65-kilometre-per-hour winds and drenching rains.

Colom said the storm has already killed four people inside a house that collapsed under a rain-triggered mudslide, 220 kilometres west of Guatemala City. - AFP/fa

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 77/1/.html