Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Rocker Nicky loses mother to leukaemia
62 die as Guatemala volcano erupts Many more feared buried by lava
MANIC Street Preachers star Nicky Wire is mourning the death of his mum from cancer.
The band’s founder, and bassist, pulled out of the recent Belfast BBC Biggest Weekend to be at 80-yearold Irene Jones’ bedside.
Nicky’s brother Patrick Jones said in a post on Sunday: “There’s a new bright star in the sky tonight. Our dear mother Irene Jones passed away today after a long brave battle with Leukaemia.”
Nicky, 49, said recently, after visiting his mother in Blackwood, South Wales: “She was given six months and it’s been a year so far.
“But she’s not been too well lately, so it’s hard to watch that happen.
“We’ve always been a close family. It’s just been really hard.” DOZENS were killed and many more are feared dead after Guatemala’s most violent volcano erupted.
Some 62 people perished and 300 were hurt when the Volcan de Fuego, or “fire volcano”, spewed a river of lava on to homes and thick smoke into the sky.
Fast-moving flows hit villages killing people inside their homes. At least three of those confirmed dead were children.
More than 3,100 people have been evacuated while search and rescue efforts were continuing last night, said Sergio Garcia Cabanas, the director of Guatemala’s disaster agency.
He added: “It’s a river of lava that overflowed its banks. There are injured, burned and dead people.”
Officials say the eruption about 20 miles southwest of the capital Guatemala City will affect 1.7 million people.
Hundreds of police officers, soldiers and emergency workers have been drafted into affected areas on the slopes of the volcano. They found charred bodies resting on steaming remnants of a fast-moving volcanic flow.
Survivors described the horror and destruction after whole villages appeared to be swallowed by lava.
Local resident Consuelo Hernandez, who lost some relatives, said: “We saw lava was pouring through the corn fields and we ran toward a hill. Not everyone escaped, I think they were buried.”
Another villager, Ricardo Reyes, said: “The only thing we could do was run with my family and we left all our possessions in the house.
“Now that all the immediate danger has passed, I came to see how our house was – and everything is a disaster.” The eruption was the volcano’s second biggest this year.
La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City had to close its only runway because of volcanic ash.
President Jimmy
Morales has declared three days of national mourning. In a statement, he spoke of the nation’s “deep pain” caused by the “irreparable losses” in human lives.
Settlements on the southern slopes of Fuego were also buried in volcanic ash, mud and rocks as the volcano erupted for 16 and a half hours on Sunday.
But according to Guatemala’s National Institute of Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology last night: “The eruption is reaching its end with weak-to-moderate explosions and incandescence in its crater.”
Yet it warned there could be new eruptions, and residents in surrounding areas should be on alert for mudslides of volcanic material.
Ash had spread in a 12-mile radius and winds could carry the cloud even farther. Guatemala is on the “Ring of Fire,” an area of intense seismic activity and the Volcan de Fuego one of Central America’s most active volcanoes.