QUITO, Ecuador (AP):

A violent eruption by Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano showered incandescent rock and lava on nearby villages, killing at least one person, leaving 60 missing and burning residents as they tried to flee, a local mayor said yesterday.

A doctor treating burn victims from late Wednesday's eruption described the devastation as "Dantesque."

Authorities had ordered the evacuation of three Andean hamlets on Tungurahua's slopes Wednesday after the volcano's crater filled with lava. But many residents were reluctant to leave their homes, said Juan Salazar, mayor of Penipe, one of the villages, located 135 kilometres (85 miles) south of the capital of Quito.

"This is an indescribable catastrophe. The houses have collapsed. The rocks that fell caused injuries and burns ... in Penipe," Salazar told Channel 4 television yesterday. The injured were taken to the city of Riobamba, he said.