About 425,000 live in shadow of Ecuador’s Cotopaxi volcano

Quito, Ecuador: Ecuadorean authorities say 425,000 people live in areas that could be threatened by fast-moving mud and rock flows if there is a major eruption of the Cotopaxi volcano.

Top disaster official Maria del Pilar Cornejo briefed reporters on Monday as bad weather scrapped a planned flyover of the snow-capped 5,897-metre volcano, which is 50 kilometres south of Quito.

Cotopaxi last rumbled on Saturday, when it shot ash more than 3.2-kilometre high and spilt some lava. Four hundred people were evacuated briefly.

The volcano began showing renewed activity in April. Its last major eruption was in 1877.

Considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, Cotopaxi sent an ash plume high into the sky on Friday, before spewing several smaller clouds and leaving surrounding towns with a light dusting of volcanic ash.

Several small earthquakes were also recorded.

Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute reported early on Monday that there had been no new ashfall and little sulphur smell in the area during the previous 24 hours.

But they labelled internal activity at the volcano “high” and surface activity “moderate.”

The state of the volcano, the institute said, was “actively erupting.”

“No pyroclastic eruption have taken place, so there are lava flows,” security minister Cesar Navas said.

But he added that “there is evidence of fluid moving inside the volcano, as well as gas and magma.”