SANTIAGO: A volcano in southern Chile erupted early on Tuesday, spewing fiery plumes of lava into the night sky and forcing the evacuation of some 3,600 people in nearby towns.

In its first major eruption in 15 years, the Villarrica volcano, one of Chile’s most active, began spewing lava and ash around 3am, prompting authorities to declare a red alert, the National Emergency Office said.

As sirens sounded, bright yellow-orange lava spewed from the volcano about 800 kilometres south of the capital Santiago.

A column of ash rose as high as three kilometres above the volcano, which is about 2,800 meters high. Authorities closed roads leading to the area as residents streamed into shelters at designated safe zones well removed from the volcano.

But within about seven hours the eruption calmed, and there were no longer any visible signs of activity.

Authorities partially lifted their red alert, keeping it in place for a 10-kilometer radius around the volcano but allowing residents of the main towns in the area to return home under “yellow alert”. But schools remained closed in the towns of Villarrica, Pucon, Curarrehue and Conaripe, which surround the volcano.

“I am calling for calm. We are monitoring and evaluating the situation closely,” said President Michelle Bachelet after meeting with the country’s emergency committee. She then boarded a plane to visit the affected area.

The eruption “was fairly intense but short in duration,” said Luis Lara, the head of Chile’s volcano monitoring network.

“It was basically a small eruption,” he said from the National Emergency Office’s headquarters in the capital Santiago.

He downplayed the risk of flooding, which sometimes occurs when lava melts the snow cover around a volcano, causing the surrounding rivers to rise.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play