About 60 people were missing and 13 others were injured after southern Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano spewed red-hot lava and ash, burying four villages Thursday a mayor said. "Red-hot rock, ash and lava mowed down four settlements," Penipe town mayor Juan Salazar told Ecuavisa television.
"I have 3,200 persons evacuated," he said.
However, public safety officials said some 1,500 people had been evacuated from the slopes of the volcano, which following a magnitude 4.4 earthquake to the south-east.
"The situation is indescribable. There are approximately 60 people missing in the highest-risk area, as well as seven injured people who were taken to the city of Riobamba and six others injured in Penipe," Salazar told the network.
The mayor said the 5,029-meter (16,500-foot) volcano, located just 135 kilometers (83 miles) south of Quito, disgorged lava and flames.
"A very powerful explosion this morning produced glowing rocks, ash and lava that devastated several areas," Salazar said. "We suffered 18 continuous hours of fire."
One resident said the area around the volcanic cone was covered with a dense layer of ash, about five centimeters (two inches) thick.
"Penipe is in the dark, as if it were night. There is a lot of ash. Rocks drove holes in the houses. I saw a lot of injured people," the resident told a radio station.
"Approximately 1,500 people who had been evacuated (after a July 14 eruption) had to leave their homes again in the villages of Cusua, Bilbao and Juiva, due to increased activity in the volcano," said Mauro Rodriguez, a retired army colonel in charge of the evacuation.
Quito University's Geophysical Institute had said earlier that the eruption could be bigger than the one on July 14, which destroyed thousands of hectares of farmland and left some 10,000 people homeless.
"We can't say whether this is the last eruption," said institute director Hugo Yepez.
"We have to watch the volcano, but we can say that the calm after the explosions could last weeks or days," he said.
Institute vulcanologists pinpointed the strongest eruption near midnight Wednesday and lasted until 3:00 am (0800 GMT) Thursday.
The quake struck Wednesday at 12:16 am (0516 GMT), according to the US Geological Survey, which described the magnitude 4.4 quake as "light," 180 kilometers (110 miles) south-east of Quito at a depth of 32.6 kilometers (20.3 miles).
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