Raining down lava and sand on farmland and clogging wells, a volcano that roared to life this week is forcing thousands of people to flee by foot, bus and ox cart.
"The people are beginning to panic," Capt. Pedro Tapia, chief of the Nicaragua's civil defense program, said late Wednesday.Authorities said they worried that people in remote areas wouldn't be able to escape because the Cerro Negro volcano blocked dirt roads with toppled trees and other debris.
Several families were trapped in the village of El Porvenir because the roads were blocked, said peasant Jaime Vargas.
"You can't get out by vehicle or even ox cart," he said.
It wasn't known whether people trapped in isolated communities were in immediate danger from the increasingly active volcano.
Civil defense workers were using machetes and their bare hands to clear roads around Cerro Negro, which was spurting lava 1,000 feet into the air. The volcano flung 50-pound chunks of glowing rock for hundreds of yards.
Fifteen miles east of Leon and 75 miles northwest of the capital of Managua, the 2,200-foot Cerro Negro began belching sand and lava Nov. 19 after a three-year lull.
It roared to life Tuesday night, and molten lava formed a new volcanic cone higher than the original mountain, said seismologist Camilo Urbina of the Nicaragua Earth Studies Institute.
The institute warned Wednesday that the explosions have become "continuous and increasingly violent." Communities around the volcano went on emergency alert.
After refusing for days to leave their homes in Leon and nearby villages, peasants on Wednesday began loading household belongings and chickens into crude carts, pulled by animals or by themselves.
Those who stayed behind worked long after nightfall, clearing sand and ashes from the roofs of their homes and other buildings to prevent the structures' collapse.
Ash and sand shrouded the city, limiting visibility. Motorists drove slowly to prevent accidents. People in the streets covered their heads to keep the dust from their eyes, noses and mouths.