After brief respite, hot Chile volcano sends plume into the sky

April 2015 – CHILE – After a short period of rest, the Villarrica volcano in southern Chile recently exploded to life again, sending a plume of boiling ash high into the atmosphere. The eruption triggered an increase in the alert level near the volcano to orange, the second highest rating. The 2860-metre-high snow-capped stratovolcano, located 750 kilometers south of the capital Santiago, is one of the most active in Chile. The latest series of eruptions began on 7 February with several minor explosions and ash plumes triggering a yellow alert. A further pre-dawn eruption on 3 March sparked the evacuation of thousands of people from within a 10-kilometre radius of the volcano.

That eruption covered the mountain’s eastern flank with a huge volume of volcanic material. Villarrica is one of Chile’s most active volcanoes with at least 66 recorded eruptions since the arrival of Europeans. This image of Villarrica’s latest eruption was taken from an altitude of about 700 kilometers by the Advanced Land Imager onboard NASA’s EO-1 satellite on 18 March, 2015. –ABC Net