PINGUE, Ecuador (AP) - An army colonel backed by a phalanx of 15 soldiers barricaded the road Wednesday to a now-deserted tourist town at the base of the rumbling Tungurahua volcano. "Nobody, absolutely nobody, passes. This is an order from the president," he told a group of villagers, reporters and photographers clamoring to get by the military checkpoint. Six miles farther down the winding highway, nestled in a narrow valley at the foot of the 16,457-foot volcano, lies Banos - a town of 17,000 evacuated in the face of an eruption that could come in a matter of days. All roads into the area were ordered closed Wednesday within a 15- to 20-mile radius of the crater, four days after scientists determined that lava and ash from the snowcapped volcano could engulf the town.

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