GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Rocks spewing from a volcano overlooking
the Guatemalan capital killed a television reporter and crushed
roofs in villages near the peak, authorities said Friday. Three
children are missing.

Major explosions also shook a towering volcano in the South
American nation of Ecuador on Wednesday, forcing evacuations of
three villages. There were no immediate reports of deaths.

Guatemala’s Pacaya volcano started erupting lava and rocks on
Thursday afternoon, blanketing the Central American country’s
capital with ash and forcing the closure of the international
airport. President Alvaro Colom declared a “state of calamity.”

“We thought we wouldn’t survive. Our houses crumbled and we’ve
lost everything,” said Brenda Castaneda, who said she and her
family hid under beds and tables as marble-sized rocks thundered
down on her home in the village of Calderas. The family was waiting
for rescue teams to take them to a shelter at a nearby school.

Television reporter Anibal Archila was hit by a shower of
burning rocks when he got too close to the volcano, about 15 miles
(25 kilometers) south of Guatemala City, said David de Leon, a
spokesman for the national disaster committee.

The last images of Archila broadcast by Channel 7 television
show him standing in front of a lava river and burning trees,
talking about the intense heat.

De Leon said three children between the ages of seven and 12
were missing.

At least 1,600 people from villages closest to the volcano have
been evacuated to shelters.

The volcano’s eruption lost some intensity Friday, though ash
still rained heavily on nearby communities and constant explosions
continued to shake the 8,373-foot (2,552 meter) mountain, according
to the Central American country’s Geophysical Research and Services
Unit.

The unit reported an ash plume 3,000 feet (1,000) meters high
that trailed more than 12 miles (20 kilometers) to the
northwest.

Ash no longer fell over Guatemala City, where bulldozers scraped
up blackened streets. Residents used shovels to clean their cars
and roofs, carrying out large garbage bags filled with ash into the
streets. City officials pleaded with residents not to dump the ash
into sewers.

The blanket of ash was three inches (7.5 centimeters) thick some
southern parts of the city, and officials imposed limits on trucks
and motorcycles to help speed up traffic.

The government urged residents not to leave their homes unless
there was an urgent need.

La Aurora airport will be closed at least until Saturday as
crews clean up said Claudia Monge, a spokeswoman for Civil
Aviation. Flights were being diverted to the Mundo Maya airport in
northern Guatemala and Comalapa in El Salvador.

Meanwhile, Ecuador’s National Geophysics Institute reported a
major explosion from the 16,479-foot (5,023-meter) Tungurahua
volcano, prompting evacuations of three villages nearby.

It said pyroclastic flows of hot volcanic material have blasted
down the western slope. The scale of the ash cloud was obscured by
clouds.

Institute researcher Sandro Vaca told Radio Sonorama that the
eruption “seems to be growing rapidly.” But there were no immediate
reports of deaths and the number of evacuees was not clear.

Eruptions at Tungurahua, 95 miles (150 kilometers) southeast of
the capital, Quito, buried entire villages in 2006, leaving at
least four dead and thousands homeless.

While the Guatemala eruption shut down local flights, it was not
expected to affect airports in neighboring countries like Iceland’s
Eyjafjallajokul volcano did.

The ash erupting from Pacaya is thick and falls quickly to the
ground, unlike the lighter ash that spewed from the volcano in
Iceland and swept over much of Europe, disrupting global air
travel, said Gustavo Chigna, a volcano expert with Guatemala’s
institute of seismology and volcanos.

The most active of Guatemala’s 32 volcanos, Pacaya has been
intermittently erupting since 1966, and tourists frequently visit
areas near three lava flows formed in eruptions between 1989 and
1991.

In 1998, the volcano twice spewed plumes of ash, forcing
evacuations and shutting down the airport in Guatemala City.