By Esteban Medel
CHAITEN, Chile (Reuters) - Crackling with explosions,Chile's Chaiten volcano began spitting lava on Tuesdayfollowing its first eruption in thousands of years, and Navywarships were deployed to evacuate nearby residents in thesouthern region of Patagonia.
Chaiten erupted last Friday, sending a towering plume ofash into the sky that has since coated the surrounding area ofsouthern Chile and reached into neighbouring Argentina.
The settlement of Chaiten, six miles (10 km) from thevolcano, looked like a ghost town on Tuesday. Aside from asmall contingent of Navy sailors and a few journalists, onlydogs, chickens and horses remained standing in the ash.
Explosions and loud groaning noises resounded from thecrater of the 3,280-foot (1,000-meter) volcano, which had beendormant for thousands of years.
No lava flow has yet been detected down Chaiten's sides,but Chile's National Emergency Office said the volcano wasspitting bits of molten rock and that remaining civilians andtroops were being evacuated across a fjord.
"The situation has changed suddenly," national emergencyofficial Rodrigo Rojas said in an interview. "Today the volcanois erupting with pyroclastic material on a different scale."
The towering ash cloud was clearly visible from thesouthern town of Puerto Montt, where many desperate evacueeswere being sheltered.
"I am very worried to have left my house, my pet, myanimals behind. All I want is for this to be over," said CarolaPerez, a 22-year-old housewife evacuated to the town.
The government ordered the evacuation of a 30-mile (50 km)radius around the volcano -- which lies some 760 miles (1,220km) south of the capital, Santiago -- including two dozenpeople who had refused to leave their homes and animals.
It appealed to anyone still on remote farms in the area toleave.
Military personnel, police and journalists were beingferried to join dozens of civilians already aboard warshipswaiting in the fjord off Chaiten. Around 4,200 people, nearlythe whole population of Chaiten, have already been evacuated.
Sparsely populated Patagonia is the southernmost swathe ofLatin America that cuts across Chile and Argentina and is hometo towering snow-capped peaks, some of them volcanoes, glaciersand log cabins, and is a gold mine for dinosaur fossil hunters.
DENSE CLOUD OF ASH
Luis Lara, a government geologist, said he did not expect acatastrophic collapse of the Chaiten volcano, but that a cloudof dense, very hot material could coat the surrounding area.
"This produces a more complicated scenario," Lara said. "Adense cloud of pyroclastic material could move down its slopes,and that causes much more damage (than a spray of lava)."
"The entire volcano will not (collapse), but the eruptivecolumn could, and that is sufficient material to be displaceddown its sides and into areas nearby," he added. "Lava flowwould not reach Chaiten, but hot fragments, ash and gas could."
A second town, Futaleufu, has also been coated with ash andis being evacuated. The area is some distance from Chile'svital mining industry farther north.
Some of Futaleufu's 1,000 or so residents have alreadycrossed into neighbouring Argentina, where some areas have alsobeen showered with thick ash and where flights and schools weresuspended.
Argentina is not evacuating residents from theworst-affected zones, instead advising them to stay indoors.
"It's a horrible situation. Sometimes it goes all dark andit doesn't stop raining ash," said Cecilia Rimoldi, a residentof the southern Argentine tourist town of El Bolson.
The ash is more than 6 inches (15 cm) thick in some placesnear Chaiten, contaminating water supplies and coating houses,vehicles and trees. Thousands of head of cattle are being movedout of the area.
Chile has the world's second most active string ofvolcanoes behind Indonesia. It is home to 2,000 volcanoes, 500of which experts say are potentially active. Around 60 haveerupted over the past 450 years.
(Additional reporting by Antonio de la Jara in PuertoMontt, Monica Vargas, Manuel Farias and Juana Casas in Santiagoand Jorge Otaola and Walter Bianchi in Buenos Aires; Writing bySimon Gardner; Editing by Kieran Murray)
