After 89 days, Colombia lowers activity alert at Nevado del Ruiz volcano

Reuters
Updated ·1 min read
FILE PHOTO: Colombia raises alert level for Nevado del Ruiz volcano, in Cerro Guali

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's geological service said on Tuesday it would lower the activity level at the country's Nevado del Ruiz volcano to yellow, after raising it in March because of seismic activity that had made an eruption more likely.

The government had raised the volcano's alert level to orange and carried out some preventative evacuations because of a surge in small earthquakes which had made the volcano less stable.

"After 89 days at activity level orange ... we announce that the Nevado del Ruiz volcano has entered a period of lessened instability," the geological service said on Twitter.

The Nevado del Ruiz is a stratovolcano, or composite volcano, which straddles the border between Colombia's Tolima and Caldas provinces.

The Nevado was the cause of Colombia's biggest natural disaster when it erupted in 1985, causing avalanches of earth and rock fragments which buried entire settlements and killed more than 25,000 people.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)