(Xinhua) -- Galeras Volcano, located in San Juan de Pasto, Narino department's capital, in the southwest of Colombia, erupted on at 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday local time (0900 GMT), without report of victims.Assistant director of the Colombian Geology and Mining Institute (Ingeominas) Martha Calvache told local radio station Caracol, that the alert on the volcano were raised from orange to red, the highest level, which implies an "imminent or current eruption." This made the authorities to order the evacuation of thousands of residents in nearby villages and town.
But "it has not been possible to analyze the material coming out from the volcano, which could be associated to ashes or probably to lava," Calvache said.
Later, Ingominas said in a statement published on its website that "to the moment there were no reports of ashes fall in Sandona and La Florida municipalities located in the northwestern side of the volcano."
Meanwhile, director of Colombian Red Cross Carlos Ivan Marquez told Radio Caracol that "to the moment we do not have any report of damaged or the expel of a large amount of (volcanic) material."
Galeras Volcano, located 9 kilometers from San Juan de Pasto and 4,276 meters high over the sea level, has been active since many years ago and in the last days several earthquakes related to its activity had been reported.