Death toll from Guatemala volcano eruption rises to 62

Volcanic ash has blanketed villages near Guatemala City (Luis Soto/AP) Credit: AP/Press Association Images

At least 62 people have died following the most violent eruption from Guatemala's "fire" volcano in four decades, according to local officials.

The head of Guatemala's National Forensic Sciences Institute has says that 13 of the dead have been identified so far.

An undetermined number of people are still unaccounted for, but around 300 people have been injured since the first eruption.

More than two million people have been affected by the blast.

Disaster workers had been pulling bodies from the brown sludge known as pyroclastic flow that had engulfed the village of El Rodeo before the new explosion on Monday morning.

The Volcan de Fuego, or “Volcano of Fire”, first exploded in a hail of ash and molten rock on Sunday, blanketing nearby villages in heavy ash.

Lava later began flowing down the mountain’s flank and across homes and roads.

Eddy Sanchez, director of the country’s seismology and volcanology institute, said the flows reached temperatures of about 700C (1,300F).

The scale of the volcano's eruption could be seen from a long distance. Credit: PA

Dramatic video showed a fast-moving lahar, or flow of pyroclastic material and slurry, slamming into and partly destroying a bridge on a road between Sacatepequez and Escuintla.

A police officer filmed the moment smoke and ash filled their vehicle as locals tried to flee from danger.

Sacatepezuez television published images of a charred landscape where the lava came into contact with homes. Three bodies lay partially buried in ash-coloured debris from the volcano, which lies about 27 miles from Guatemala City.

Villages have been blanketed by the heavy ash Credit: AP

Other videos from local media showed residents walking barefoot and covered in muddy residue.

“Not everyone was able to get out. I think they ended up buried,” Consuelo Hernandez, a resident of the village of El Rodeo, told the newspaper Diario de Centroamerica.

“Where we saw the lava fall, we ran to a hillside” to escape, she added.

Homes were still burning in El Rodeo late on Sunday, and a charred stench hung over the town.

Hundreds of rescue workers, including firefighters, police and soldiers, worked to help any survivors and recover any more bodies amid the still-smoking lava.

Neighbours stand outside a temporary morgue near Volcan de Fuego Credit: AP

Firefighters said they had seen some people who were trapped, but roads were cut by pyroclastic flows and they had been unable to reach them.

Amid darkness and rain, the rescue effort was suspended until early Monday morning, municipal firefighters’ spokesman Cecilio Chacaj said.

Fidelina Lopez, right, is consoled by her daughter Claudia in a shelter near the Volcano of Fire in Alotenango, Guatemala

Among the fatalities were four people, including a disaster agency official, killed when lava set a house on fire in El Rodeo village, national disaster coordinator Sergio Cabanas said.

Two children were burned to death as they watched the volcano’s second eruption this year from a bridge, he added.

Another victim was found in the streets of El Rodeo by volunteer firefighters, but the person died in an ambulance.

At an ad-hoc morgue in the town of Alotenango, at least three bodies lay covered with blue sheets.

Guatemala’s disaster agency said 3,100 people had evacuated nearby communities, and ash fall from the eruption was affecting an area with about 1.7 million of country’s 15 million or so people. Shelters were opened for those forced to flee.

“Currently the volcano continues to erupt and there exists a high potential for (pyroclastic) avalanches of debris,” the disaster agency said late on Sunday via Twitter, quoting Sanchez, the director of the seismology and volcanology institute.

Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales said he would issue a declaration of a state of emergency to be approved by Congress and urged people to heed warnings from emergency officials.

Ash fell on the Guatemala City area as well as the departments of Sacatepequez, Chimaltenango and Escuintla, which are in south-central Guatemala around the volcano. Streets and houses were covered in the colonial town of Antigua, a popular tourist destination.

Aviation authorities closed the capital’s international airport because of the danger posed to planes by the ash.

One of Central America’s most active volcanoes, the conical Volcan de Fuego reaches an altitude of 12,346 feet (3,763 meters) above sea level at its peak.