Evacuations as volcano spew ash
The Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador is billowing ash into the sky and sending super-hot pyroclastic flows surging down its slopes, causing authorities to evacuate nearby villages.
Hugo Yepez, director of Ecuador's Geophysical Institute, said no one has been injured nor any village damaged.
He said people within eight miles of the volcano's centre were evacuated as a precaution.
An eruption of ash from Tungurahua last May caused a one-day shutdown of the international airport at Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil. Thousands of people in near the volcano also were evacuated.
The volcano is 95 miles south-east of Quito, the capital. In 2006, an eruption buried entire villages and killed at least four people.