Chilean Volcanic Eruption: What Travelers Need To Know

Authorities ordered the evacuation of the 1,500 inhabitants of the nearby town of Ensenada, along with residents of two smaller communities.(AP Photo/Diego Main/Aton Chile)

The Calbuco volcano in Southern Chile erupted twice on Wednesday night, without warning, sending a huge cloud of ash and lava up to 15 kilometers into the air.

It is the first time the volcano has erupted in 42 years and according to Alejandro Verges, the emergency director for the region, the volcano was not under any serious form of observation.

In the hours following the eruption, the Chilean government declared a Red Alert and have already evacuated around 4,500 people from the surrounding area with a 20km exclusion zone in effect, barring all access except to emergency workers.

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The region, which is part of Patagonia, has long been a big tourist destination, evolving from a remote back-packer favorite, to one of the top locations in the world for adventure and activity tourism. Around 4 million people visited Chile last year, producing over 3% of the country’s GDP.

So what does the eruption mean for tourists in the region, or those with plans to travel there? What hazards does it pose?

Well firstly, although hard to predict, it appears that the volcano has plenty of activity still to be seen. Dr David Ferguson, a volcanologist from Harvard University explained to Yahoo Travel what can be expected in the hours and days to come.

A bus drives along an ash covered road, caused by the eruption of Chile’s Calbuco volcano in Villa La Angostura, in southern Argentina, Thursday, April 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Federico Grosso)

“The way these eruptions usually work is they start with lots of explosive activity, lots of ash and rock being ejected into the air, and then they usually progress to a quieter more effusive, rather than explosive, state,” he explains. "It is impossible to say that there won’t be more explosive periods to this event. And we would expect over time that it would probably start feeding some lava flows. These would travel down the side of the volcano.”

But due to the location of the volcano, right in the centre of a national park, any lava would not pose a significant threat to human life.

Related: Geologists Explain the Risks of Volcano Tourism

“This volcano is not in a particularly densely populated area - It’s in a national park,” Dr Ferguson says. “ The volcano is about 30 miles away from the closest main town (Puerto Montt), which is a major tourist centre. But those people are far enough way that the aren’t at risk. Certainly from lava flows.”

The 20km exclusion zone would close all roads around the volcano, preventing anyone from getting too close. But this would also cause some problems for tourists attempting to travel down to this part of Patagonia. However according to Dr Ferguson, the main hazard to people in the area is the ash fall.

Children watch the Calbuco volcano erupt. (AP Photo/Carlos F. Gutierrez)

“Ash is very heavy and can make bridges collapse, it can make electricity grids short out and it’s obviously a hazard if you breathe it. We call it ash but what it is is very fine particles of volcanic glass, which is really nasty to breathe in. It’s not good for your lungs obviously. So certainly, in regions where there is moderate ash fall it would not be advisable to be outside breathing the air. You should probably try and stay inside. Don’t expose yourself too much.”

It is impossible to say when the activity from the volcano will stop. Or if it will change direction.

“It really depends on the wind,” Dr Ferguson says. “There was a volcano eruption nearby in 2008 of the volcano Chaiten and that blew ash all over Argentina. People will be monitoring this using satellites where they track the ash cloud.”

A large amount of ash has already fallen across the region with many people taking to social media to post pictures of the ash settling. Residents in nearby Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt, woke up Thursday morning to to grey smokey skies and ash covering the ground.

Ash was also reported in the Argentinian town of La Villa Angostura, around 90 km northeast of the volcano. The streets and cars had a fine coating of ash but people were reported to be going about their daily business as normal.

Weather experts predicted the ash cloud could travel as much as 1,500km east towards Buenos Aires, Argentina. According to the USGS (U.S Geological Survey) volcanic ash can be very dangerous for aircraft, causing failure to operational and navigational instruments, damaging wind screens and even melting parts of the plane. This makes flying around or near a volcanic eruption particularly unsafe.

The US Embassy in Chile said in a statement that the Puerto Montt airport has been closed until further notice, affecting all flights in and out of the region.

Flights in other areas of Chile and Argentina have also been affected, with many cancellations reported across the two countries.

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The embassy recommended that all U.S Citizens traveling in the region “avoid the area and follow all emergency instructions published by ONEMI” - the Chilean Office of National Emergency and Ministry of the Interior.

“The eruption poses a risk to travelers in the area due to the potential for a high level of air pollution from the volcanic cloud and emissions that might include ash and volcanic gases,” it advised in the statement. But as yet no major travel advisory by the State Department, suggesting avoiding travel to Chile or Argentina, has been issued.

Reports of panic buying from local grocery stores and lines at ATM’s occurred in the first few hours after the initial eruption but appear to have subsided now.

"The situation is relatively calm right now, although people are understandably anxious about what could happen tonight,” Verges said during a press conference on Thursday afternoon as experts warned that the volcano remains unstable and could erupt again.

US tourists in the area, or those planning to travel there should monitor the US State Department website for up to date travel information and warnings.

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