According to the National Center for Disaster Prevention, there are 48 volcanoes in Mexico that are considered active, among which are Popocatépetl, located in the limits of Morelos, Puebla and the State of Mexico; the Volcán de Fuego (Colima Volcano), in Colima and Jalisco; Ceboruco, in Nayarit; Pico de Orizaba, in Veracruz and Chichón, in Chiapas.
The last volcanic disaster in Mexico took place in Chiapas in 1982, after the eruption of the volcano ‘Chichón’, which was inactive for 550 years.
At that time, the natural phenomenon destroyed 400 square kilometers of forest, affected nine villages and it is estimated that there were two thousand deaths.
Transmexican Volcanic Belt
Most active volcanism in Mexico is located in the central part of the territory, in the so-called Transmexican Volcanic Belt that crosses through the states of Querétaro, Hidalgo, Morelos, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Veracruz, Federal District, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, Guanajuato and the State of Mexico.
What is an active volcano?
The National Center for Disaster Prevention says that an active volcano is a volcano that has erupted in the last 10,000 years and that maintains the potential to develop some eruptive activity in the indeterminate future with or without external and internal manifestations.
“It is important to mention that the processes of eruptive activity in a volcano also contemplate the resting times of the volcano, that is, the moments in which it does not present perceptible or visible manifestations of volcanic activity, however, it is still considered an active volcano due to that at any time it can eject material or record seismic activity,” as is detailed on their website.
The Popocatépetl volcano is the clear example of what an active volcano is since from 1993 it began to show an increasing volcanic activity when it increased its seismic and fumarolic activity in its crater and on December 21, 1994, it produced the first ash emission in close to 70 years.
State of Mexico, Puebla, Morelos, Mexico City and Tlaxcala, the states most vulnerable to an eruption of Popocatepetl Volcano, says the UNAM
As of today, June 4, 2018, the Popocatepetl Volcanic Alert system has the volcano at Amarillo Phase 2.
The Volcanic Alert implies an increase in activity with water vapor and gas plumes; light fall of ash in nearby areas; fall of incandescent fragments; possibility of pyroclastic flows due to explosions and mud or short-range debris flows.
