Managua, June 28 (RHC)-- The Nicaraguan Seismic Network is monitoring the Apoyeque volcano after three slight movements were registered near the capital Managua.

Apoyeque is considered the second most active volcano globally. It forms the broad Chiltepe Peninsula in western Nicaragua and extends into south-central Lake Managua. 

The volcano is part of a more massive volcanic complex and consists of a low 500 m high shield cut by a 2.8 km wide and 400 deep lake-filled calderas and a 2.5 x 3 km wide explosion crater, the lake-filled Xiloá (Jiloá).

The telluric movements recorded had an intensity of 1.8; 1.6 and 2.4 degrees on the Ritcher scale with a 5 to 7 range of depth.

Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo said that the Nicaraguan Institute for Territorial Studies (INETER) is also in surveillance over the volcano activity as it represents "a point to always keep studying it to protect families and our country."

Volcanologists from the University of Manchester ranked the Apoyeque the second most active in the world, following Iwo Jima volcano in Japan.  According to their study, a possible eruption of the Apoyeque not only would affect the capital Managua but since its eruption might be underwater, it would provoke a tsunami.