Chaiten volcano: "Two lakes vanished in half a year"

Imagine a cloud of volcanic ash stretching 1800 miles from where you live.

That's the extent of the "vog" (volcanic fog) that has spread from coast to coast of South America from the eruption of the Chaiten volcano in Chile.

It has traveled from the Pacific to the Atlantic – and overland from Chaiten to Buenos Aries in Argentina.

Buenos Aries and its surrounding urban areas houses 11 million people. Above their heads right now, 2000 meters aloft, that toxic cloud is gradually moving toward Uruguay.

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Fourteen years ago 75-year-old Professor Σscar Gonzαlez-Ferrer of the Universidad de Chile wrote "The Atlas of the Chilean Volcanoes," in which he said as a caldera, Chaitien had no ice and the dome could explode at any time.

Asked by the media this week if his warnings were taken into account he said "of course not."

That's to be expected. It happens all over the world. Politicians hate to let the facts spoil a good campaign for votes….votes they want from people who have the same syndrome…ignoring the facts is a universal human ailment.

Leaving that fact aside – Nature itself gives her own warnings, well in advance of such events.

Kristen wrote a newsletter in June last year in which she reported that one of the many lakes around Chaiten volcano literally disappeared overnight. The same thing happened in February this year.

"I was writing newsletters and saying this is not something to take lightly – two lakes vanished in half a year."

And during the last 12 months, in the city of Ayssen in Chile (in the Chaiten region), a volcano began to form in the middle of the city.

"There is no chance in what happens," says Kristen. "It's not that Nature catches you without warning. Always there's a warning, even when a marriage breaks. Warnings come months or years before. Do we take it into account?"

Taken together, these three warnings should have been enough for both politicians and citizens alike to wake up to the fact that some sort of major eruption was imminent. But what did the politicians do? They sent psychiatrists – that's right, shrinks - to Ayssen to calm the people down. ("Stay calm, There's a volcano growing in the middle of your city. Nothing to worry about at all. Stay put. It'll be fine. We've got it under control….").

How far can this eruption of Chaiten and Michimauida go?

"No-one knows," says Kristen. "We only know it is non stop throwing out gas ash stones and pyroclasts. Water is already at ph9 so it's impossible to drink. The countryside is covered in ash."

And she says up to 15 million people from Chile to Buenos Aries are under that ash cloud, a smog of poisonous fumes that can increase blood fluorine levels very rapidly – and death results.

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