A violent eruption by Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano showered incandescent rock and lava on nearby villages, killing at least one person, leaving 60 missing and burning residents as they tried to flee, a local mayor said Thursday, according to The Associated Press. Authorities had ordered the evacuation of three Andean hamlets on Tungurahua's slopes Wednesday after the volcano's crater filled with lava, but many residents were reluctant to leave their homes, said Juan Salazar, mayor of the village of Penipe, 135 kilometers (85 miles) south of the capital of Quito. «This is an indescribable catastrophe. The houses have collapsed. The rocks that fell caused injuries and burns... in Penipe,» Salazar told Channel 4 television about the eruption late Wednesday. The injured were taken to the city of Riobamba, he said.
