Even as Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano erupted again early this morning, spewing incandescent fragments down the slope of the 17,900-foot mountain and a column of ash that reached at least three kilometers (1.86 miles) in height.
The National Disaster Prevention Center kept the alert level at Phase 3 Yellow. However, as CNN reported earlier this week, residents of the zone were not bothered by the volcano's activity. Popocatépetl is known colloquially in the region as "Don Popo," "Don Goyo" or "El Popo."
In past years, the Center said activity of this type has been associated with swelling of magma and the growth of lava domes; meaning that medium to high-scale explosive events were expected. These might include the expulsion of lava a swell as explosions of increasing intensity, pyroclastic flows and ashfall on neighboring towns.
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"Don Goyo" is located about 43 miles southeast of Mexico City (from which it is occasionally visible on a clear day), in Puebla state. More than 11,000 people live in nearby communities of San Pedro Benito Juárez, Atlixco, San Nicolás de los Ranchos and Santiago Xalitzintla.
On Monday, CNN Mexico quoted nearby resident José Cortés Agustín as saying, "I would prefer to die here than leave. People from the city get scared. That fear doesn't exist around here, [Popocatépetl] wouldn't do us harm. It gives us the gift of beautiful images which there's no reason to be afraid of. No one can predict the day of the eruption ...They saw on the news that one has to be alert, but its shaking and thundering are part of its activity and part of the activity of those of us who live near it."
The news service also interviewed 48-year-old Néstor Torres, a teacher in a nearby elementary school, who recalled the last time in which the volcano occasioned an evacuation of towns around it, in 1994.
"That time we really did get scared," he said. "My students then didn't know what to do, and I didn't either. I just remember that the military came and took us to a shelter. Everyone was scared, people said that the end of the world had come. Fortunately there weren't any losses. Now, we're all very much used to the noise 'El Popo' makes."
Elsewhere, El Pais reported this week that residents had described the mountain as "roaring like a faraway sea," while others told the newspaper it sounded like a "gigantic boiling pot" and an "airplane engine."
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