Image copyright CENAPRED Image caption The ash plume shot into the sky at 03:10 local time (08:10 GMT)

One of Mexico's most active volcanoes has sent a huge ash plume into the sky, the country's centre of disaster monitoring has reported.

Overnight video taken by the centre shows ash and incandescent material shooting from the Popocatépetl volcano 2,000m (6,500ft) into the air.

People have been warned to avoid the area inside the 12km security radius surrounding its crater.

Ash has been falling on communities near the volcano.

Carlos Valdés, the director-general of the monitoring centre, Cenapred, posted footage of the eruption on his Twitter account.

He wrote that incandescent material had been thrown 400m down the slopes of Popocatépetl.

Popocatépetl is an active stratovolcano, 70km (43 miles) south-east of the capital, Mexico City.

Its name means "smokey mountain" in the indigenous Náhuatl language.
Popocatépetl, a stratovolcano that is part of the trans-Mexican volcanic belt, releases a large quantity of ash.