Reuters
PUEBLA, Mexico
- Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano on Sunday spit out a huge arc
of ash and smoke that reached almost two miles into the sky and
landed 15 miles away, authorities said.
"At the
moment, the volcanic activity is continuing, although it is diminishing,''
Mexican Disaster Prevention Center spokesman Carlos Valdes told
Reuters.
Valdes said
the activity began at 5:10 p.m. with a plume of smoke and ash
that shot into the air and arced out in a west-northwesterly direction.
It even threatened to hit Mexico City, 40 miles away.
Valdes, who
monitors volcanic activity at the Volcano in Puebla, east of Mexico
City, said the state was on "yellow alert.''
Residents
have been warned not to come within 4.3 miles of the volcano,
whose name in the indigenous Nahuatl tongue means ''smoking mountain.''
Valdes added,
however, that the 17,887-foot volcano posed no major threat to
residents in nearby villages.
"Popo,''
as Mexicans call the volcano, was inactive from 1927 to 1994 but
has in recent years been spitting out columns of volcanic ash.
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