Volcanic ash blankets town in Argentina
ESQUEL, Argentina – This Patagonian winter resort town wears a mantle of white in the South American autumn. But it’s not from early snows.
Ash from the Chaiten volcano across the Andes in Chile has been falling on the Argentine side of the border since the long-dormant volcano erupted last week – its first eruption in thousands of years.
The onslaught of ash has yet to cause evacuations on the Argentine side, as it has in Chile. But it has closed schools, disrupted flights and shut down highways while raising worries about health effects in this city of 32,000 and other zones where the ash has fallen.
There has been a run on pharmaceutical masks and mineral water in Esquel, about 1,250 miles south of Buenos Aires. Residents complaining about irritated eyes, sore throats and breathing problems have been converging on doctors and clinics.
While the ash flow diminished on Wednesday, the realization is taking hold that the fine dust isn’t likely to go away in the foreseeable future. Scientists say the volcano could keep on belching for weeks or months.
“We’re going to have to learn to live with this,” Mario Vargas, the regional vice governor of ash-covered Chubut province, told reporters.
Authorities sought to allay fears about health impacts and drinking water. Officials stressed that the ash, while irritating the eyes and respiratory system, was not toxic. They downplayed any long-term dangers posed by the volcanic debris and said noxious gases were not present in the atmospheric soup.
Several hundred refugees have arrived here from the Chilean hamlet of Futaleufu, once home to about 1,000 people. They seem dazed and bewildered, unprepared for a natural disaster that suddenly took away their homes in a picturesque, quiet zone, forcing them to flee across the Andes.
“We’re all sad, and it makes us sadder still to watch the television and see what this volcano has done, how it has destroyed our town and everything around it,” said Rolando Moraga, one of the Chilean refugees. Scientists continued monitoring the Chaiten volcano, but there was no consensus on what would happen next.
The great fear is a catastrophic explosion with hot flows of fast-moving gases and rock that could destroy much of the countryside in its path, including swaths of Chilean wilderness.