Tungurahua Volcano Erupts in Ecuador

Pictures: 'Scary' Volcano Erupts in Ecuador

December 8, 2011

National Geographic - Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano (satellite map) put on a spectacular show, as seen from the town of Juive Grande last Monday. The volcano has been erupting intermittently since 1999, but it only recently roared back into a very active phase.

Eruptions have been picking up steam since late November on the 16,479-foot-high (5,023-meter-high) volcano, which towers above the town of Baños—popular with tourists for its thermal baths and scenery. Some 25,000 residents live permanently in high-risk evacuation areas under the mountain's steep flanks.

During the past few days, Tungurahua has been unleashing booming explosions, hurling columns of ash some 9,800 to 16,000 feet (3 to 5 kilometers) above its peak, and issuing flows of lava. (Also see more pictures of seven other volcanoes erupting right now.)

Tungurahua "certainly ranks as one of the volcanoes that keeps people up at night," said Smithsonian Institution volcanologist Richard Wunderman, managing editor of the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network. "It's scary."

(Related: "'Sleeping' Volcanoes Can Wake Up Faster Than Thought.")

Residents of the Tungurahua area—including a cow in Cotalo, which wears a cloth mask for protection from ash—have become used to volcanic activity.

Airborne ash can stymie air travel and pose health hazards, as seen during the spring 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Volcanic ash can also cause problems on the ground.

"When ash falls, it's a headache," Wunderman said. "It doesn't melt like snow, and it doesn't run downhill right away like rain. It sits and waits for a storm or some unusual event, and then it all comes down at once as mud.

"That can change the [shapes] of the valleys, and a location that was a safe distance above a stream can suddenly end up in the stream."

(Also see: "Kilauea Volcano Pictures: Hawaii Eruption Spurts Lava.")

Tungurahua volcano spewed incandescent rocks and lava on Sunday. The mountain is among the most unsettled in volcanically active Ecuador.

Tungurahua eruptions have threatened nearby communities several times, including a major event during World War I (1916 to 1918). That eruption was the most recent serious activity until the current long-term eruption began in 1999.

The initial 1999 eruption quickly melted a small glacier that had formed on Tungurahua's peak. Baños and other communities were evacuated in October 1999, but by the next summer most people had returned, and the town was back in business as a tourist hub.

Intermittent eruptions have continued over the past decade and caused half a dozen deaths in 2006, when entire villages were buried with scorching rock and ash.

(Related pictures: "America's Ten Most Dangerous Volcanoes.")