CHAITÉN The Patagonian community of Chaitén became a ghost town on Saturday after Chilean authorities removed thousands of residents as a long-dormant volcano, left, spewed ash a day after it erupted.

Most of the town’s 4,500 residents have fled – many going by boat to Chiloé island, slightly farther north, and to Puerto Montt on the mainland. Some are staying in guesthouses, while schools have been turned into makeshift shelters packed with stores of bottled water after the ash contaminated ground water.

Only a few dozen people remained in Chaitén, whose snow-capped volcano erupted on Friday, triggering earth tremors and spewing a cloud of ash two miles into the air.

Ricardo Larenas, 32, took his wife and two children to safety in Puerto Montt, then went back to protect their belongings. “I came back here after living in Norway for 16 years. I brought a lot of money with me and frittered it away. My furniture workshop is all I have left,” he said.

Southern Chile is fragmented into hundreds of small islands and fjords. Some residents had never ventured from Chaitén until the volcano six miles away forced them to go.

Across the nearby border in Argentina, authorities in Chubut province asked residents to avoid rubbing their eyes and to wear glasses and long sleeves to avoid ash making contact with skin. Chile’s 2,000 volcanoes include two of Latin America’s most active – Villarica and Llaima. Scientists say that 500 are potentially active. Chile has the world’s second most active string of volcanoes after Indonesia. (Reuters)

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