I'm sure the fleas will head a thousand miles north too.

Man, that thing looks mean.

I'd be heading out real fast.

.

LOL about the fleas. And I never understood why so many cities in so many Countries have built on faults or at the bases of volcano's. Then when something bad does happen people affected are like " I never thought this would happen". Ummmm..... People you live next to a huge volcano.... Hello!!!!!!!

With the high probability of a natural disaster, I'll never understand why people live near volcanoes. You think they'd be smarter.

You mean like the people in California, awaiting the next super-quake, or the people living New Orleans, waiting for the next category 4 storm to blow in, or like the people living between Tacoma and Mt. Ranier, directly in the path of massive rock slides, which have many times traveled from the slopes of the mountain, straight through Tacoma, and into Puget Sound.

If one were to avoid all areas of the world where natural disasters might occur, or even will occur at sometime in the future, half of the world's land area would be deemed uninhabitable.

The indiginous people worshiped this volcano at one time.( some still do) I was there in the '70s when it blew. Very impressive and then, there are the earthquakes! There are 3 capitol cities: The Old City, The New Old City and The New New City , aka: Guatemala City, the present Capitol city. They all ring this Volcano and all have been laid to rubble at least once. Just the way it is. It never occured to me to ask; Why do you still live here? They just accept it, along with the revolutions I suppose. When things are good though,,,,, it is really, really beautiful! Every time I return, I smile.

I'll never understand why people live near volcanoes

FWIW - the ash etc. that volcanoes produce, once weathered, produces some of the most fertile soils on Earth. So, never say never.

;-)

We all live by volcanoes. Those of us that think otherwise, more than likely live by a super volcano.

If one were to avoid all areas of the world where natural disasters might occur, or even will occur at sometime in the future, half of the world's land area would be deemed uninhabitable.

probably more like 90%

;)

Firefleas? : )

We all live by volcanoes.

Couldn't agree more.

From the time you are born, you live on the edge of an abyss. Your foot can slip any time...

Am I the only one who thinks that Dara Brown's coverage of things, even erupting volcanoes, is boring? Her voice is almost monotone and she has little facial animation.

et220,

It's pretty clear from your description that you are confusing Fuego with Agua. They are very differently located volcanos, and the location you describe is definitely not Fuego. And, Ciudad Viejo and Antigua were destroyed by earthquakes, not volcanic flows.

If you think that's bad, wait till the Yellow Stone Park SUPER volcano explodes. Most of the USA and Canada will be fleeing to Mexico and other countries as this 400,000 overdue volcano finally goes off!

Dara Brown is SO cute!

Pretzelogic gets a thumbs up cause Pretzelogic

Actually TheKhanKubla, you would be better off NOT fleeing if Yellowstone erupts. Better to die right away and quickly than suffer a long agonizing death. If Yellowstone blows it will throw us into a nuclear winter, and hardly anyone in the entire world would make it out alive. I have watched several documentaries on it that have said exactly how it will play out. It won't be pretty. I'll spare you the details...some things we are better off not knowing, lol. I wish I didn't know what I do about it.

"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then..."--Bob Seger

If you think that's bad...actually, people in central and South America are pretty good about building municipalities away from their active volcanoes. What trips them up is when a volcano that's dormant or considered possibly extinct becomes suddenly active...they just live in a VERY active volcanic zone.

There is, however people who are terminally tempting fate: Italians. You'd think after the 79 AD eruption that buried Pompeii and Hurculaneum and various eruptions since that Italians and Italy would know to stay well away from Vesuvius but the people of Naples don't seem too concerned. They are violating building codes right and left and are building right up to the rim of Somma, the collapsed caldera where Vesuvius resides. Even a comparitively minor eruption (VEI 2-3) would collapse and destroy most of the nearby homes, killing the people inside. It's not like Vesuvius hasn't been active recently, it's last eruption was in 1944. Another example of tempting fate is in Indonesia with Krakatau. Krakatau had a cataclysmic eruption in 1883: it caused huge tsunami of over 100 ft. high on the coast, collapsed into a caldera and killed 36,000+ people. It's the deadliest volcanic eruption in modern history (direct effects only) and yet millions of people live on the coasts and there is another volcano, Anak Krakatau that has formed an island.

As for Guatemala I think the people probably know what to expect from Fuego, it's actually pretty predictable. It's good they took precautions though...no one wants another Armero (Nevado Del Ruiz, 1985..killed 25,000 people and wiped out the town).

With the high probability of a natural disaster, I'll never understand why people live near volcanoes.

You really have to think about it. Look at Mount Rainer in Washington. It looks like a normal mountain (I've been up it myself), but it is actually a volcano. Yet Seattle was found around 1851 in its shadow. You really don't think they know it was a volcano at that time do you?

I think many of these cities were found long ago, just like Seattle was. Still, I do understand some are founded near volcanoes that regularly blow up for those I have no clue.....

33,000 told to flee as volcano erupts near Guatemala tourist zone

And in other news 33,000 potential democrat voters are heading to the great El Norte. DNC registration gatherers have assembled on the border awaiting their arrival. More on this after the weather and sports.......

It's a sign.

Those of us who live in Central America have little choice about living close to Volcanoes as they litter the region. I live in El Salvador literally on the slope of the volcano that overlooks the capital. El Salvador has over 20 volcanos although only 2 have been active in recent years. Teamed with Volcanos the region is plagued with earthquakes (for the same reason as the volcanos which is the Pacific plate sliding under the Caribbean plate) and San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador was destroyed in 1756 and 1854 and heavily damaged in 1919, 1982 and 1986. Guatemala is worst off than El Salvador with 29 volcanos and the made friction point between the Pacific plate and the Caribbean runs through Guatemala.

So the answer to your question of why people live so close to volcanoes is they have no choice. Already some of the poorest people, they live where they must and where they can scrape together a living.

The "7 seals"/'beyond Einstein theories" have been opened. The 74-page prophesied "book/scroll" of The Revelation 5:1-10:10 is entitled There Are No Coincidences - there is synchronism. Yesterday, I printed out 21 copies of the Title Page and I looked for a non-coincidental synchronic reaction. Besides Ezra a young Hasidic rabbinical student being the only one waiting at the copy center in Staples, this volcano in Quatemala had its strongest eruption in 13 years. See: http://7seals.blogspot.com & http://7seals.yuku.com .

The people who live in this resort area have no need to go to the US as there is plenty of good paying work there and also is one of the areas people from the US are buying high priced houses in.

"With the high probability of a natural disaster, I'll never understand why people live near volcanoes. You think they'd be smarter. On the other hand, there's all those people in Southern California who build homes on cliffs supported by stilts along the San Andreas Fault..."

Something tells me you've never had the opportunity to be in close proximity to volcanoes. Am I an idiot to you because I live in Oregon? Here's the thing...we are all entitled to live the lives that we want, and all paths of life include inherent risks. I moved to Bend, OR (right on the East slope of the Cascades) about 7 years ago from SE South Dakota. Every summer there are numerous tornadoes throughout the entire midwest region. Is that any more safe than living next to volcanoes that are monitored 24/7 by the USGS which also display warning signs long before they erupt? Do you also cast judgement on those who live in the SE and have to deal with hurricanes every year? Everywhere has "act of god" type of weather/natural disasters to deal with. I choose to live where I am because it's drop-dead gorgeous, extremely diverse, and occupied by like-minded people. If one of these mountains wakes up, I know the drill and various evacuation routes. Does this still make me less "smart" in your eyes?

I don't think it's coincidence that this same week another volcano in Nicaragua has become active. The San Cristobal volcano has forced the evacuation of over 3,000 people. This is probably somehow connected to the 7.6 earthquake in Costa Rica just a few days prior. Probably lots of shifting and friction building up on the pacific plate.

About people living close to volcanoes, well... Nicaragua by itself has 50 volcanoes, out of which 7 of them are active. Usually there are warnings or signs that things can turn ugly such as tremors and rumbling noises in the vicinity. Volcanoes are a major source of tourism in those areas, so populations shift with economic opportunities too. Some lagoons are also made out of old inactive volcano basins.

Volcanoes have been erupting for many centuries I don't believe what you are saying is all legit.

Volcanoes have definitely screwed up the climate in the past. Humans are screwing it up pretty good too.

The difference is that in theory, human behavior can be controlled whereas volcanic and tectonic forces cannot.

Um, guys. I am pretty certain vglance was being sarcastic, lol.

and Obama rushed to say "let's not be hasty in our judgement. It may have been a premature eruption."

What did the third Little Pig say? weeweewee

And polls tell us 80% of the country would be "okay" if members of Congress jumped into a volcano.

you forgot one... Biden says What's a Volcano and should we put chains on it?

Funny-Flame...The flame will get you..I guess I'm just bored to answer to you,ha-ha-ha.

You make me feel like a hundred glowing Guatemalans.

@ Jay-1644814 (snicker)

kick back and enjoy the light show...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhJvSw99G1E

Mongoose!!! obviously, you are not a huge Tom Hanks fan!

Well, Mongoose, within 10 miles of my house I have 3 volcanoes, and within 50 miles, I probably have over a dozen. Having been through Loma Prieta, Northridge, and Katrina, I'm quite happy to take my chances with a volcano.

Mongoose,

If you live in America you live next to a volcano capable of affecting you. Yes I am talking about the Yellowstone caldera.

Lots of people live by volcanoes and don't even realize it. Volcanoes are ubiquitous to living on the coast, whenever I drive down to Oregon State it's pretty awesome to see all the ancient cinder cones and old lava domes covered in forests nearby I-5. Portland has an extinct cinder cone within its city limits. The important lesson here is volcanoes create and build more than they ever destroy. Inactive and extinct volcanoes are usually covered in vegitation, even some active ones have huge forests covering them. The reason why is volcanoes create excellent, nutrient rich soil that plants just love. Growing plants means places for animals to survive, creating entire ecosystems. An important example of this is Ngorongoro in Tanzania. Millions of years ago, Ngorongoro and its giant caldera neighbors were formed by enormous eruptions that exploded out massive amounts of magma. All of them have been extinct and Ngorongoro has one of the single most amazing ecosystems on Earth. Chances are if you live in a mountainous region and have excellent soil, a volcano probably erupted it. That's why people live by them, volcanoes create amazing resources for us to use in both soil and minerals, diamonds are just highly compressed silica which is a major component of magma. Even when volcanoes destroy, they build...Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980 and devestated its pristine forested area, now less than 30 years later life has returned and an amazing ecosystem is being formed. Same with Krakatau, Mt. Tambora, even active supervolcanoes like Toba and Yellowstone are natural wonders. Crater Lake in my state, Oregon is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world and its an active volcano. You really should read and study more about volcanoes before being terrified by them....

Mtlgreer...you were living in the Loma Prieta area when the earthquake happened, then moved to Northridge and lived there when the earthquake happened, then moved to the area hit by Katrina...and now you've moved to an area surrounded by volcanoes? Gadzooks! Did you not learn your lesson? Back away from the volcanoes now...and please be sure to post where you will be living next, so I can be sure not to move there and can notify FEMA! ;-)

Oh, I live near a supervolcano. It's about 150 miles away.

/me eyeballs Yellowstone

Calijim,

Yep, lost a house in Loma Prieta, lost some inventory in my shop in Northridge, lost half my house in Katrina (It collapsed on me), and also lost most of my businesses in New Orleans and south Mississippi in Katrina.

Now, I live on the shores of Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala, which, incidentally, is actually inside of the caldera of a mega volcano. But, Aldous Huxley said "Lake Atitlan is the most beautiful lake in the world. It's like Lake Como (in Italy), but with volcanoes." We have 3 around the lake.

Life is good. The ash cloud blew back out last night, and the volcano is much calmer today. And tomorrow's Independence Day. Another day in paradise!

That was stupid...maybe your invisible hand can convince it to sell its own resources and privatize itself so some private company can manage it responsibly: tear all its forests down, shoot the animals that live on it and make children mine the sulfur reserves. Fuego can make a lot of money doing this and as a bonus it can occassionally kill the sulfur miners, saving your company money so it can pay its board of directors giant bonuses. Of course when the amount of pollution being created by the private company easily outdoes the volcano, the company can lie and blame it on the volcano. Idiotic teabaggers like yourself will even buy it...then you can go become sulfur miners until your back gives out after a few years or the volcano erupts and kills you in which case your life insurance company assuming they'll cover you will stiff your surviving relatives and pay their board huge bonuses for doing so! Not that you'll care, you'll be dead but the mining company will make a mint and your relatives can be choaked by their dirty emissions...it's the free market cycle of life!

Jeepers - wear a mask or something if you can, and try not to breathe too much of that. Those really fine particulates won't just make your nose run - they're super bad for your lungs.

Hope you stay as safe as possible...

Thanks Pretzelogic, the cloud has moved a bit south right now, and we can see some stars. It's just pretty hazy at the moment. I'm hoping it will rain tonight, but it doesn't look like we'll be that lucky. Conred, (our version of FEMA) says that the activity is slightly diminished at the moment.

And, yes, I know the ash is quite bad. If the ash cloud comes back, out come the wet bandanas. I'm not particularly looking forward to getting up on all the roofs in my compound to sweep off ash, if it comes to that.

mtl...you can wear a mask or if in a pinch use your shirt as a filter. What you don't want is ash to enter your lungs because it forms a sort of mud inside them and literally suffocates you. I can't remember the exact name for the condition but its dangerous. If the volcano is erupting dust, just use your shirt to keep the dust from getting in your lungs and wear glasses or some other covering to keep it out of your eyes and you'll be okay.

Good luck to you, mtlgreer! Excuse my joking comment earlier, please. I've visited Panajachel and Antigua and loved it...I hope everything goes well for you...take care!

Yea but remember we have volcanos in the States to. Heck we even have a huge...... Super Volcano under Yellowstone!!!Oh great, now I just scared myself! I'm out of here I'm moving to Mars!

of the six known land-based supervolcanoes, three are here in the continental US; Yellowstone(WY), Long Valley (CA), and Valles Caldera (NM).

darkangelpaladin

Actually, most of the people who live at the base or on the sides of Fuego are extremely poor subsistence farmers, who literally have no where to go. Many of their villages lack even basic services. It's easy for many people to forget that our country is the second poorest in the western hemisphere.

I'll be writing this again, sigh...volcanoes are not something to be terrified of. You're far more likely to be killed by an Earthquake, a Tornado, a Hurricane, a car accident or even a rabid dog then you are by a volcano. Most volcanoes are incredibly benign and produce amazing soils because their lavas are highly rich in both minerals and nutrients. It's very rare that volcanoes actually kill people and Volcanologists have become really precise with predictions over the years. There is a scale for volcanic eruptions, the volcano explosivity index. It runs from 0-8 with a 0 being an eruption of hot water and an 8 being a super eruption. Most eruptions are between 1-3 meaning yes, they can kill you but mostly they are localized to their cones/bases. The really severe eruptions of 5+ are pretty rare, they are so rare in fact last century there was only a handful world wide. VEI 7 eruptions are extraordinarilly destructive, they are so big that the volcano erupting them collapses into a caldera because of the amount of magma emitted, those are so rare only a handful happened this past millenia. The point is by and large living near an active volcano isn't actually that dangerous so long as you observe certain rules like, don't build on its flanks. Kagoshima in Japan is a large city that is built within a few miles from a highly active volcano named Sakura-Jima. Sakura-Jima erupts every few years and rains light ash on the city, the people clean it up and then go about their daily lives. They even have these cool automated cleaners that vacuum the ash off the city streets and people have automated vacuums for their property. They put up with it because Sakura-Jima's ash is highly beneficial and the waterway between humans and volcano is excellent for shipping. You really should study more about volcanoes before being afraid of them...

Oh, and Yellowstone. It's really unfortunate that Yellowstone has made it into popular culture the way it has because the alarmism is entirely unwarranted. Yellowstone is active but not an eminent threat. In fact it could go another million years without erupting and even when it does erupt the most common eruption is rather small, Mt. St. Helens sized. The 'super' eruptions are extremely rare and neither Yellowstone, nor Long Valley in California, nor Valles in New Mexico is likely to have such an eruption anytime soon. In fact, the last volcano that unleashed a super eruption of enormous size, Toba is also not likely to have another one occur anytime soon (it super-erupted 80,000 years ago and humans..survived). Super eruptions are so rare we can eons without seeing one, so I wouldn't be so worried about Yellowstone. I'd go visit the park and enjoy which I already have done...it's amazing.

mtl...totally true and its sadly not uncommon for that sort of living condition to exist. The one that makes me the angriest occurs in Indonesia at a volcano named Ijen. Poor locals are recruited by the local mining concern to mine sulfur right out of the crater lake and not only is the work highly dangerous its incredibly grueling. People will load up baskets and then mount them on their shoulders and carry them thousands of feet down the side of the mountain where they are weighed and processed. People are paid a penance for doing this and the work is so grueling many miners have severe back problems that give them horrible postures and pain. The life expectancy of miners is 33 years of age from the work but also because Ijen is active and unpredictable, well the lake is. What's dangerous about a crater lake is even when the volcano is not erupting its degassing out huge amounts of carbon dioxide, flourine you name it. This builds up in the water and sometimes forms bubbles which explode and kill any human or animal in the vicinity. Ijen also has occassional phreatic explosions of super heated lake water which scald miners to death. This to me is the worst workplace on Earth...

chris, I simply made a statement of fact, what people make of it is their own business.

I for one, am certainly not living in fear that the next supervolcano will erupt in my lifetime. I live (on a clear day and a good observing point) within sight of five dormant volcanoes. I would actually be thrilled if one of them had a typical eruption in my lifetime, that would be something to see, if something of an inconvenience due to possible ashfall.

Sounds like a great time...in the states, aside from Alaska's volcanoes the closest thing we've had recently is St. Helens burping out some gas and a little bit o' magma. Before I moved to Oregon I heard South Sister volcano here was being watched for eruption but eh...false alarm. Not that I'm saying it would be cool for a big explosive eruption or anything...but it would be kind of awesome to see it happen far away. I'm too young for the '80 St. Helens eruption...so while I originally was going to major in geology and then Phd. in Volcanology, I still find volcanoes awesome and thrilling.

Sisters eh? you're probably not all that far from me.

Right...because even natural disasters aren't immune to idiotic right wing politics. Awwww....I'll bet you're butt sore about something...oh and by the way, it's you wingnuts who like to blame Obama for EVERYTHING...even @!$%# Bush did. When you get reminded of such (like the lie about the Janesville plant) or any other sundry lies you get all sullen and come post here. Also, I'll remind you Republicans were blaming Clinton for 9/11 ON 9/11 and Bush blamed Clinton for his own @!$%#ty economic record as Bush was leaving office. Until you can establish that you aren't giant finger-pointing hypocrits, I don't want to hear or read bitching about how liberals blame Bush for people falling in the shower (especially because you wingnuts create conspiracy theories about how Clinton set up the guy to fall in the shower because he's a giant mobster).