Mexicans keep wary eye on volcano

ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION

Mexico's famous Popocatepetl volcano is spewing high columns of gas and ash into the sky daily, and there is no sign of any let up a month after the National Centre for Disaster Prevention raised the alert level.

It's now on the third highest rung of the centre's seven-step scale, indicating possible magma expulsion and explosions of increasing intensity.

Civil authorities reported last month that exit routes for nearby towns have been cleared, and shelters established in case the order is given to evacuate the area.

The 5, 483-metre volcano (17, 992 feet) whose name means Smoking Mountain in the Nahuatl Indian language, is just 64 kilometres from Mexico City.

It has hurled 1.6 kilometre high clouds of ash and smoke into the sky several times this year.

Its last major eruption was in 2000, just a week before Christmas Day, when more than 40, 000 people fled the area in a haphazard evacuation that clogged vital exit roads.