Volcano news: Colima Volcano (Mexico)

Colima volcano (Mexico): intense ativity continues, lava flow advances

The activity of the volcano remains very intense. Magma continues to rise into the lava dome in the summit crater and spill over the SW flank as a broad, viscous lava flow that has by now reached the base of the cone.
Detaching masses from the flow generate continuous glowing rockfalls and occasional pyroclastic flows (extremely dangerous and mobile hot block and ash flows). The volume of the lava dome, which has now completely filled the crater, gas been estimated to have reached and surpassed 1.2 million cubic meters.
Strong degassing and explosions generate a steam and ash plume that rises about 3000 m most of the time.
Civil protection has started to evacuate the nearest communities around the volcano including the hamlet of Yerbabuena, La Becererra and Juan Barragan, and imposes an access restriction of 10 km radius around the volcano.

Background:

Colima volcano is one of the most active in North America and one of the potentially most dangerous ones. It has had more than 30 periods of eruptions since 1585, including several significant eruptions in the late 1990s. Scientific monitoring of the volcano began 20 years ago. 

The Colima volcanic complex is the most prominent volcanic center of the western Mexican Volcanic Belt.  It consists of two southward-younging volcanoes, Nevado de Colima (the 4320 m high point of the complex) on the north and the 3850-m-high historically active Volcán de Colima at the south. 
A group of cinder cones of probable late-Pleistocene age is located on the floor of the Colima graben west and east of the Colima complex. Volcán de Colima (also known as Volcán Fuego) is a youthful stratovolcano constructed within a 5-km-wide caldera, breached to the south, that has been the source of large debris avalanches.  Major slope failures have occurred repeatedly from both the Nevado and Colima cones, and have produced a thick apron of debris-avalanche deposits on three sides of the complex.  Frequent historical eruptions date back to the 16th century.  Occasional major explosive eruptions (most recently in 1913) have destroyed the summit and left a deep, steep-sided crater that was slowly refilled and then overtopped by lava dome growth.
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Source: GVP, Smithsonian Institute - Colima information

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