On Monday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in his morning briefing that “the movements of the volcano are being monitored 24 hours a day.” Other than that, they are encouraging people to remain calm. Its last major eruption happened more than a thousand years ago.Īuthorities have closed schools in dozens of municipalities across three states, put troops on alert, prepared shelters and checked evacuation routes. Popocatepetl has been active for a half-million years. “The probability that this continues as it has previously is far higher than the probability that this grows to much higher levels,” he said. Scientists and Mexican authorities say there’s no sign that the current waves of small eruptions at Popocatepetl will turn into anything more destructive, said Servando de la Cruz Reyna, a senior geophysics researcher at the UNAM in Mexico City, adding that is there “nothing new or surprising” about recent movements. It has recently prompted evacuations for heightened activity as well. In Guatemala, the Volcano of Fire claimed the lives of hundreds of people in a 2018 eruption. Pre-Hispanic writings speak of intense activity at Popocatepetl at the beginning of the 16th century. Previous surges in activity date back centuries. Spewing ash, gas and lava, authorities have increased the alert to the yellow, second level on a stoplight-style scale, but not yet to red. In past weeks, the volcano entered another one of those periods. In 2000, that activity triggered a red alert and evacuations before the volcano calmed down again. It has had periods of intense activity between 20, and again between 20. There has been a surge of activity since 1994 at the volcano affectionately known as “Popo,” which is being tracked by scientists at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM). WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE POPOCATEPETL VOLCANO? Volcanologists say that, while a massive eruption doesn’t appear imminent, eruptions are likely to continue, as they have for three decades. Approximately 25 million people live within 60 miles of the mountain. Hundreds of explosions have spit lava from the snow-tipped peak of the 17,797-foot Popocatepetl (puh-puh-ka-TEH-pet-tl). “The cause of the collapse of the beam must be established through an expert investigation,” Sheinbaum said.MEXICO CITY > Towering a couple of hours from one of the world’s largest cities, the Popocatepetl volcano has been coating nearby towns with ash and disrupting flights at Mexico City’s airport, the busiest in Latin America. Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard called the collapse “the most terrible accident we have ever had in mass transportation.” Ebrard was Mexico City’s mayor from 2006 to 2012, when the affected line was built. Children were among the fatalities, Sheinbaum said. Of the 24 killed, 21 died at the scene, while the others died at hospitals. On Tuesday, a crane carefully lowered a train car containing four bodies to the ground. Monday as a train passed along the elevated section, said Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum in describing one of the deadliest incidents in the history of the subway system, one of the world’s busiest. MEXICO CITY (AP) - The death toll from the collapse of an overpass on the Mexico City metro rose to 24 Tuesday as crews untangled train carriages from the steel and concrete wreckage that fell onto a roadway.Īnother 77 people were injured when the support beams collapsed about 10:30 p.m. The elevated section of the metro’s Line 12 collapsed late Monday killing at least 23 people and injuring at least 79, city officials said. Subway cars dangle at an angle from a collapsed elevated section of the metro, in Mexico City, Tuesday, May 4, 2021. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |