14 DAY TRIAL // This past April 22, at about 6 p.m. local time, the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile erupted with no warning whatsoever and sent a thick plume of ash soaring into the sky. The ash quickly formed a massive and scarily dense cloud towering over the volcano and its surroundings.
A time-lapse video documenting this latest volcanic eruption in Chile made it online shortly after the event and is now making the rounds. You can find the footage in question below.
It's been decades since the volcano last erupted
The Calbuco volcano is located in Chile's Los Lagos Region. Together with its surrounding area, it is part and parcel of the country's Llanquihue National Reserve.
Researchers say the volcano last showed signs of unrest back in August 1972, when a minor eruption that lasted merely 4 hours happened. The Calbuco volcano's last major eruption, on the other hand, took place in 1961.
During the 1961 event, the Chilean volcano produced thick ash columns that reached altitudes of 12 to 15 kilometers (about 7.5 to 9 miles), and also birthed lava flows.
Apparently, the Calbuco volcano in Chile's Llanquihue National Reserve is so temperamental that it is widely considered one of the country's most dangerous. Even so, it was not under special observation prior to yesterday's eruption.
The eruption forced 1,500 people to leave their home
In the aftermath of the unexpected eruption that happened this past Wednesday, officials with Chile's National Mining and Geology Service ordered that a 20-kilometer (12.5-mile) exclusion zone be set up around the volcano.
Just as a precaution, about 1,500 people living in the nearby town of Ensenada were evacuated, DM informs. Families in several other smaller communities in the proximity of the volcano were also asked to leave their homes.
“It sounded like a big tractor trailer passing by the road, rattling and shaking, guttural rumbling. We left everything there, grabbed my kid, my dog, got in the car with my wife,” Ensenada local Trevor Moffat said in an interview.
Earlier this year, another of Chile's volcanoes erupted and forced the evacuation of thousands of people living close to it. This other volcano, named Villarica, started showing signs of unrest in late February and erupted on March 3.
