Managua, Nicaragua (AP) - Nicaraguan authorities say they’ve ordered the evacuation of some 300 families living on the flanks of the country’s highest volcano after it began spewing hot gas and ash Tuesday.
Some 1,500 farmers living on the slopes of the San Cristobal volcano refused to leave, despite being ordered to evacuate as the volcano spewed gas, sand and ash. “People have not evacuated because we do not want to go and leave the area abandoned,” Maria Pereira told AFP.
Pereira lives in “Grecia 4,” a community of about 600 people at the base of the volcano, in the Chinandega department. She said columns of ash “bathed the trees, houses, and roads in white” and “pretty sand fell” in the morning.
She said by early afternoon volcanic activity had decreased, though in the evening new columns of ash shot up. In another community near the volcano, Bethlehem, some farmers resisted efforts of Civil Defence officials to convince them to obey the evacuation order.
Federal government spokeswoman and first lady Rosario Murillo told a local radio station that a yellow alert was declared Wednesday in a 1.8-mile radius around the San Cristobal volcano to allow the evacuation of residents who would be at highest risk during a significant eruption.
Murillo said 15 eruptions had been recorded over the last day at the volcano northeast of the capital of Managua. She said the volcano has emitted regular small eruptions, but larger ones are unpredictable.
Authorities had wanted to move the closest residents away from the volcano as a precaution.
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