Skip to footer

Mexico volcano Popocatepetl rumbles back to life

Mexico volcano: 'El Popo' shot ash and hot rocks into the sky Friday morning. Officials in Mexico are watching the Popocatepetl volcano but have not issued evacuation orders.

|
REUTERS/Imelda Medina
Pupils, some of them wearing surgical masks, attend a class in San Nicolas de los Ranchos on the outskirts of Puebla April 19, 2012. Schools resumed classes after they had been shut for several days due to a raised alert level for the 5,450-meter Popocatepetl volcano late on Monday.
  • By Associated Press

| Mexico City

The Popocatepetl volcano shot a heavy plume of ash into the sky southeast of Mexico's capital and spewed glowing rock from its crater at dawn on Friday.

Webcam images on the site of the National Disaster Prevention Center showed the plume rising from the top of the 17,886-foot (5,450-meter) peak at dawn, though clouds obscured the volcano for people further away. The Televisa television network broadcast images of red, glowing material rising from the crater and falling on its slopes.

Authorities this week raised the alert level due to increasing activity at the volcano, known as "El Popo," whose most violent eruption in 1,200 years occurred on Dec. 18, 2000. During the 2000 eruption, tens of thousands were forced to evacuate from the area near the volcano.

IN PICTURES: Pardon the eruption: Volcanoes around the world

The coordinator general for civil protection, Laura Gurza, told Televisa that officials were not yet ready to order any evacuations, but urged people living near the mountain to be "very very attentive" to action at the volcano, which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Mexico City. She also urged them to gather important papers and to have their escape routes planned in case they have to leave.

Schools in five towns near the volcano were closed earlier this week after the alert level was raised. The schools reopened Thursday.

As the Monitor reported, in the wake of recent earthquakes and now the rumbling El Popo, Mexicans are now more worried about natural disasters than the drug war. A national poll showed  65 percent of respondents cited catastrophes and accidents as one of the top three things on their minds, while public security was indicated by 48 percent of respondents. The presidential elections slated for July 1 trailed at a distant third, at 28 percent.

On Friday, the ash was blowing to the northeast, in the general direction of the city of Puebla.

IN PICTURES: Pardon the eruption: Volcanoes around the world

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Mexico volcano Popocatepetl rumbles back to life
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0420/Mexico-volcano-Popocatepetl-rumbles-back-to-life
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe