Peru’s Sabancaya volcano erupted again on Friday, spewing an ash cloud that reached a record height of some 3,000 metres.

The new activity came just hours after a flurry of small explosions at the volcano.

Six small explosions shook the earth around the Sabancaya volcano in southern Peru on Friday morning.

The 6,000-metre volcano Sabancaya, which means “tongue of fire” in Quechua, has been in seismic activity for 18 years, when it had an eruptive period that has since continued with various intensities.

It sits atop the South America tectonic plate, which forces magma to the surface when it clashes with the neighbouring Nazca plate.

Peru’s authorities of the IGP have established a series of scientific stations to monitor the seismic and eruptive behaviour of the Sabancaya, in order to prevent human losses in case the volcano intensifies its activity.

Thousands of people live in the valleys surrounding the volcano. Some have already started to leave the region due to the rumbling.

Sabancaya, active historically, was dormant for 200 years before erupting into activity several times in the 1980s and 1990s. No casualties were reported at that and the volcano has only experienced small eruptions since.

Southern Peru is the home to more than a dozen volcanoes.

Sabancaya is about 99 kilometres from the city of Arequipa, one of Peru’s three largest cities, which was recently hit by heavy rains and flooding.

About 1.2 million people live in that city.

Source: Reuters