Mexican authorities on Thursday raised the alert level for the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City to indicate increasing intensity after it started spewing steam and gas and ejected burning fragments that caused fires in surrounding pastures.
Mexico’s National Center for Disaster Prevention warned people to stay away from Popocatepetl, saying that in the previous 24 hours it had observed more than 200 discharges from the volcano, some 50 miles to the southeast.
The center raised the volcano’s alert level to yellow phase three from yellow phase two, indicating possible magma expulsion and explosions of increasing intensity. It is . . .
