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More than 700 People Evacuated as Guatemala’s Fuego Volcano Spews Ash

Lava flows down from the crater of the "Volcan de Fuego," or Volcano of Fire, in San Juan Alotenango, Guatemala, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP)
Lava flows down from the crater of the "Volcan de Fuego," or Volcano of Fire, in San Juan Alotenango, Guatemala, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP)
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More than 700 People Evacuated as Guatemala’s Fuego Volcano Spews Ash

Lava flows down from the crater of the "Volcan de Fuego," or Volcano of Fire, in San Juan Alotenango, Guatemala, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP)
Lava flows down from the crater of the "Volcan de Fuego," or Volcano of Fire, in San Juan Alotenango, Guatemala, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP)

Guatemala's Fuego volcano shot ash miles into the air on Friday as authorities said they had evacuated more than 700 people from their homes as a precaution. 

A lava stream was building up around the crater of the volcano, which lies about 18 km (11 miles) from the central city of Antigua Guatemala, seismology agency INSIVUMEH said. 

Some ash plumes reached around 5 km into the air, it added 

Authorities have been warning of increased activity around the active volcano this week. 

"We have evacuated over 700 people who have spent the night in shelters. We evacuated them as a precaution," disaster agency CONRED said on Friday. 

People had been moved from the nearby areas of Escuintla, Sacatepequez and Chimaltenango, it added. 

In a report shortly after midnight on Friday, INSIVUMEH said a lava flow could be seen stretching to around 1.2 km. 

"This continues to accumulate in an unstable manner around the crater and in the high parts of the ravines, which could collapse and cause more pyroclastic flows," it said. 

Fuego is known for its frequent activity. In June 2018, its most violent eruption in about four decades killed more than 200 people. 

Around the size of the US state of Tennessee, the Central American nation is home to 37 volcanoes, though many of them are considered dormant or extinct. 

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Bull Sharks Linger in Warming Sydney Waters

A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)
A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)
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Bull Sharks Linger in Warming Sydney Waters

A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)
A man watches large waves on Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 2, 2025, as large swells and high winds hit the east coast of Australia. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)

Bull sharks are lingering off Sydney's beaches for longer periods each year as oceans warm, researchers said Friday, predicting they may one day stay all year.

The predators are migratory, swimming north in winter when Sydney's long-term ocean temperatures dip below 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit) to bask in the balmier waters off Queensland.

A team of scientists looked at 15 years of acoustic tracking of 92 tagged migratory sharks in an area including Bondi Beach and Sydney Harbour.

Records show the sharks now spend an average of 15 days longer off Sydney's coast in summer than they did in 2009, said James Cook University researcher Nicolas Lubitz.

"If they're staying longer, it means that people and prey animals have a longer window of overlap with them."

Shark attacks are rare in ocean-loving Australia, and most serious bites are from three species: bull sharks, great whites, and tiger sharks, according to a national database.

There have been more than 1,200 shark incidents around Australia since 1791, of which over 250 resulted in death.

Researchers found an average warming of 0.57C in Bondi for the October-May period between 2006 and 2024, said the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science of The Total Environment.

Over a longer period, remotely sensed summer sea-surface temperatures in the area rose an average 0.67C between 1982 and 2024, they said.

"If this trend persists, which it likely will, it just means that these animals are going to spend more and more time towards their seasonal distributional limit, which currently is southern and central New South Wales," Lubitz said.

"So it could be that a few decades from now, maybe bull sharks are present year-round in waters off Sydney," he added.

"While the chances of a shark bite, and shark bites in Australia in general, remain low, it just means that people have to be more aware of an increased window of bull shark presence in coastal waters off Sydney."

Climate change could also change breeding patterns, Lubitz said, with early evidence indicating juvenile sharks were appearing in rivers further south.

There was some evidence as well that summer habitats for great whites, which prefer colder waters, were decreasing in northern New South Wales and Queensland, he said.

Tagged sharks trigger an alarm when they swim within range of a network of receivers dotted around parts of the Australian coast, giving people real-time warnings on a mobile app of their presence at key locations.