Yahoo – AFP,
Miguel Sanchez, 26 April 2015
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Local
residents walk along a street covered with ashes from the Calbuco volcano
at La
Ensenada, southern Chile, on April 25, 2015 (AFP Photo/Martin Bernetti)
|
Puerto
Varas (Chile) (AFP) - Ash from Chile's spewing Calbuco volcano threatened
Saturday to spell travel misery in the region and beyond after it triggered the
cancellation of domestic and international flights in several cities.
A sleeping
giant for more than 50 years, the volcano sprang to life in spectacular bursts
of ash and lava Wednesday and Thursday, forcing 6,500 people living nearby to
evacuate and blanketed southern Chile in suffocating volcanic debris.
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A cow
stands in a farm covered with
ashes from the Calbuco volcano at
La Ensenada,
southern Chile, on April 25,
2015 (AFP Photo/Martin Bernetti)
|
In the
Chilean capital Santiago, domestic flights operated normally but some
international flights were scrubbed.
A handful
of flights were scrapped at Montevideo's Carrasco International Airport, and
authorities urged people to use face masks to avoid inhaling ash particles.
"The
volcano remains unstable and eruptions, principally ash, will continue for
now," Chile's National Geology and Mining Service said in its latest
report.
Experts
have cautioned that a third eruption could still follow.
A state of
emergency has been in place since Wednesday and authorities emptied a
20-kilometer radius around Calbuco, which is located in Los Lagos, a region
popular with tourists for its scenic mountain landscapes dotted with volcanoes
and lakes with black-sand beaches.
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A view of
the Calbuco volcano in Puerto Varas, Chile, on April 24, 2015 (AFP
Photo/Martin
Bernetti)
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More people
were ordered out from towns near Calbuco that were deemed at risk of flooding
from snow and ice melting high in the mountains due to the volcano's heat.
Authorities said they planned to evacuate about 4,000 sheep and cattle.
"I'm
afraid and still thinking about leaving, but over the long term, I would still
return to my land," said Carolina Bayern, who took refuge in a school with
other evacuees.
Raul
Rangel, who also was staying at the school, said he was no longer afraid of the
volcano after it took out his home.
"I
respect it," he added. "My house collapsed, and everything is
destroyed, and I feel such great sadness."
Blanketed
in ash
Southern
Chile's verdant landscape has turned gray as ash has settled over vast expanses
of farm land, especially in the immediate disaster zone around the volcano.
"There
are fields that will be unusable for a long time," Agriculture Minister
Carlos Furche told Radio Cooperativa.
The
government said it is weighing whether to provide emergency payments to the
hardest hit farmers, who fear they face financial ruin.
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Volcanic
lightnings and lava spew from
the Calbuco volcano on April 23, 2015, as
seen
from Frutillar, Chile (AFP Photo/
Martin Bernetti)
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In La
Ensenada, a town of 1,500 people that was the first to be evacuated, workers
used heavy trucks to plow the roads clear as a handful of residents ignored the
evacuation order to shovel the ash and debris off their rooftops.
The
2,000-meter volcano last erupted in 1961 and showed light activity in 1972,
according to official data. There have been no known fatalities from this
week's eruptions.
It is the
second volcano to erupt in Chile since March 3, when the Villarrica volcano
emitted a brief but fiery burst of ash and lava.
Chile has
about 90 active volcanoes.
The long,
thin country has been hit by a series of natural disasters in recent months,
from flooding in its usually arid north, home to the world's driest desert, to
wildfires in its drought-hit southern forests.
 |
Cars are
seen amid volcanic ashes from the Calbuco volcano in La Ensenada,
on April 23,
2015 (AFP Photo/Martin Bernetti)
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