video transcript

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano continued on Friday (May 24) to erupt with the region still on yellow phase three alert, the third-highest warning on the center's seven-step scale. Daily routines continued as usual for nearby town Santiago Xalizintla, in the central state of Puebla, which has been covered in ash as the volcano continues to spew heavy clouds of smoke. With up to 50,000 residents across 24 towns at risk from volcanic gases and lava flow, authorities are keeping a close watch over a rumbling Popocatepetl. Over the last 24 hours hundreds of individual exhalations reaching up to 2.5 km (1.5 miles) of smoke and ash spewed out of Popocatepetl in the latest escalation in activity. Tremors continued throughout the night, Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention reported. The 17,900-foot or 5,450-meter volcano, whose name means "smoking mountain" in the Nahuatl Indian language, lies just 40 miles or 64 kilometers southeast of Mexico City and its 18 million residents.