Colombia evacuates families living near active volcano

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombian officials began to evacuate 40 families from their homes Monday after a volcano in the center of the country showed high levels of seismic activity that could signal an eruption in the coming days or weeks.

Officials also shut down a popular national park that surrounds the Nevado del Ruiz volcano and said that schools located within a six-mile (10 kilometer) radius of the volcano’s crater will hold classes online only when children return home from Easter holidays next week.

“These are preventative measures” said Gov. Luis Carlos Velasquez of the Colombian province of Caldas, which is located to the west of the 17,000-foot-tall (5,300-meter-tall) volcano. Velasquez was speaking from the village of Villamaria, which is close to the volcano’s crater and was the first settlement to be evacuated.

Dozens of towns are located along rivers that originate near the top of Nevado del Ruiz. The volcano’s last major eruption took place in 1985. It unleashed mudslides that buried the town of Armero and killed about 25,000 people.

Last week Colombia’s national agency for risk management issued an orange alert for the volcano after it noticed a greater than normal amount of seismic activity near its crater. The alert indicates that an eruption is “probable” but not “imminent.” The volcano also spewed a 3,000-foot (900-meter) column of ashes on Sunday.