Santa Maria Volcano

The Santa Maria eruption in 1902 was one of the largest eruptions of the 20th century. The violent explosion came after the volcano had sat silent for roughly 500 years, and left a large crater, nearly a mile (1.5 km) across, on the mountains southwest flank.The symmetrical, treecovered volcano is part of a chain of stratovolcanoes that rises along Guatemalas Pacific coastal plain. It has experienced continuous activity since its last blast, a VEI 3, which occurred in 1922. In 1929, Santa Maria spewed forth a a pyroclastic flow (a fastmoving wall of scalding gas and pulverized rock), which claimed hundreds of lives and may have killed as many as 5,000 people.