Guatemala volcano eruption leaves 25 people dead
AT LEAST 25 people were killed when Guatemala’s Fuego volcano erupted on Sunday, belching ash and rock and forcing the airport to close, the country’s disaster agency said.
“The toll was 25 dead as of 9pm [0300 GMT on Monday],” the spokesman for the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred) said in a WhatsApp group.
Search and rescue operations for the missing and dead have been suspended due to low light and dangerous conditions, and was to resume early on Monday morning, the spokesman said.
The eruption sent ash billowing over the surrounding area, turning plants and trees grey and blanketing streets, cars and people. Farmers covered in ash fled for their lives as civil defence staffers tried to relocate them to shelters during the event.
Earlier, Conred chief Sergio Cabanas and President Jimmy Morales held a news conference, saying the eruption left seven dead, 20 injured and affected more than 1.7 million people.
Morales announced a red alert for Escuintla, Chimaltenango and Sacatepequez, the areas most affected, and an orange alert throughout the country.
Hundreds of personnel from the police, Red Cross and military have been dispatched to support emergency operations, Morales said.
Cabanas said the dead included a civil protection official and others trapped by muddy material that descended from the 3,763-metre volcano.
Twenty people suffered burn injuries, and more than 3,000 were evacuated due to the eruption, which affected rural communities around the volcano as well as Antigua Guatemala, a colonial-era town popular with tourists in the Central American country, he said.
There are also “missing persons, but we do not know how many”, Cabanas said, adding that lava had blocked entry to several communities.
Dense ash blasted out by the volcano shut down Guatemala City’s international airport, civil aviation said.
Israel, meanwhile, on Monday said it was sending aid worth $10,000 to Guatemala, with the money to be used to buy emergency equipment, namely medication, food, blankets.
Guatemala was one of the few countries to side with the United States after President Donald Trump’s December recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with decades of US diplomacy and international consensus.
On May 16, Guatemala opened its new embassy in Jerusalem, just two days after the US. Since then Paraguay has also followed suit.