HCJB World Radio sent a five-person team to the site of central Ecuador's erupting Mount Tungurahua today to assess the situation and bring relief supplies, medical help and spiritual encouragement to those affected by the volcano that began spewing lava and toxic gases on Friday, July 14.

"We're traveling with two physicians and our photographer," said Healthcare Director Sheila Leech. "We're taking food -- things such as rice, tuna, sugar and cooking oil. We don't know of anyone being injured or killed, but farm animals have been injured and crops damaged. Our doctors will look at evacuees in the refugee centers who have been affected by the ash. For example, irrigating their eyes as needed."

Leech added that the team will stay overnight in Penipe where some of the evacuees are located. "We'll take a look and see if we need to return with a mobile medical clinic immediately or at a later date."

The Associated Press reported that some 3,700 people have abandoned their homes in half a dozen hamlets since Friday, Ecuador's Civil Defense said. "There have been no victims, but all the vegetation has died, and we have lost cattle," said Juan Salazar, mayor of Penipe county which includes two villages where 300 families have been forced to flee.

In May the volcano, 90 miles south of Quito, began emitting its loudest and most frequent explosions since it rumbled back to life in 1999 after being inactive for nearly eight decades.

On Friday the Geophysics Institute reported that the 16,470-foot-high volcano had changed its behavior drastically by expelling at least four lava flows-the first since activity resumed. Hugo Yepes, director of the institute, said the wind was carrying ash from the explosions up to 75 miles west of the volcano. Some roads near the volcano have been blocked, and at least one bridge was destroyed.

Leech said the explosions are facing in the opposite direction as Baáos, a town of 20,000. "There are reports of pyroclastic flows and explosions every 45 minutes to an hour," she said. "The volcano has settled down a bit, but volcanologists are very noncommittal about what could happen next. The danger is not over."