Chile volcano alert raised
2012-12-24 08:03
Santiago - Chile issued a top-level red alert on Sunday for its
Copahue volcano, in the south on the Andean border with Argentina, as it
rumbled to register a greater potential threat.
The National Emergency Office issued a red alert but did not
order evacuations as no towns are in the current risk area.
"The intensity of seismic signals suggests the eruption
in progress is on the smaller side [but] we are not ruling out the possibility
that the activity could turn into a larger-scale eruption," the Geology
and Mining Service said in a statement.
While the 2 965m volcano straddles the two countries'
border, its crater, where most of the activity was under way, leans toward the
Argentine side, experts told AFP.
And population in the area is sparse: about 500 people live
in Copahue, a tourist town famous for its spa waters, about 900 in the town of
Caviahue and an estimated 800 more in local indigenous Mapuche communities.
The June 2011 eruption of Chile's Puyehue volcano interfered
with air travel in much of the southern cone of South America and as far away
as Australia.
