The Mexican authorities raised this Sunday the alert level for the Popocatépetl volcano, located about 80 kilometers southeast of Mexico City, due to an intensification of its explosions.
Evacuations are not yet required, but the government is finalizing the preparations in case they are necessary and asked to respect a security radius of 12 kilometers.
Laura Velázquez, national coordinator of Civil Protection, announced that the volcanic traffic light, which is the instrument to inform the population, was still at an intermediate level, yellow, but was going up from phase 2 to phase 3 due to the recent activity registered in the last few hours. .
This means that large domes grow rapidly in the crater, which are destroyed in strong explosions of increasing intensity with the launch of incandescent fragments and medium-range pyroclastic flows.
This activity, which led to the expulsion of a lot of ash, closed the capital’s airports for a few hours on Saturday. In previous days, a dozen schools in nearby towns closed.
Although this phase prior to the red, the most dangerous, does not imply evacuations, the authorities reported that shelters are being prepared if necessary and the evacuation routes in the area will be reviewed.
The volcano, which has not stopped smoking since 1994, is the most monitored in the country because within its radius of influence, a radius of 100 kilometers, 25 million people live, there are hundreds of schools, hospitals, homes and five airports with constant traffic National and international.
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