3,500 people evacuated after Chilean volcano erupts

SOUTHERN Chile’s Puyehue volcano has erupted for the first time in half a century, prompting evacuation orders for 3,500 people, authorities said.

The National Service of Geology and Mining said the explosion that sparked the eruption also produced a 10km-high column of gas, hours after warning of strong seismic activity.

“You can see the fire [in the volcano] and a plume of smoke, and there’s a strong smell of sulphur,” top Los Rios region official Juan Andres Varas told reporters.