3,500 Evacuate as Volcano Erupts in Southern Chile

 

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A volcano in the Caulle Cordon of southern Chile has erupted violently, billowing smoke and ash high into the sky and prompting more than 3,500 people living nearby to evacuate and forcing cancellation of flights. Ash and gas continued to billow from the earth on Sunday

There were no reports of injuries from Saturday's eruption.

A column of gas six miles (10 kilometers) high and three miles (five kilometers) wide rose from Puyehue-Cordon Caulle complex, according to Chile's National Geology and Mining Service.

Chilean authorities evacuateed some 3,500 people from 22 settlements near the volcano, which produced an eerie show of lightning dancing through its clouds of ash overnight.

Rodrigo Ubilla, Chile's undersecretary of labor, said some people near the volcano had decided not to leave their homes because they didn't want to abandon their animals.

Wind carried ash across the Andes to the Argentina, dusting the tourist town of San Carlos de Bariloche, which had to close its airport. Officials there urged people to use cover their mouths and noses against the ash, to stock up on food and water and stay indoors if possible.

The eruption is nearly 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of Chile's capital, Santiago.

Authorities had put the area on alert Saturday morning after a flurry of earthquakes, and the eruption began in the afternoon. The National Emergency Office said it had recorded an average of 230 tremors an hour.

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Instability Is Worsening in Southern Sudan

One southern Sudanese rebel leader, Gen. Gabriel Tang, surrendered Sunday night after months of fighting against the southern army, a southern army spokesman said, just days after 67 rebels were killed in the most recent clashes.

At the same time, a different rebel group in a nearby region claimed victory over the southern Sudanese army in clashes near the town of Mankiem during which 84 people were killed, the spokesman said. He did not specify how many were combatants and how many civilians.

“We don’t want wars on our borders,” said the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Malak Ajok. “For sure, we will be able to defend south Sudan.”

But the closer southern Sudan gets to becoming the world’s newest country, the less stable it appears. Numerous southern Sudanese rebellions have broken out since voters overwhelmingly approved a January referendum on independence from the north, not including the unrelenting tensions between northern and southern Sudan in the contested region of Abyei.

This month, the United Nations said more than 800 civilians had been killed in violence in the region since January, and the organization Human Rights Watch said last week that human rights abuses had been committed by both the southern Sudanese government and the rebels in recent fighting.

“If the southern Sudan government wants a sustainable peace when it becomes fully independent in July, it should demonstrate its commitment now with a prompt and thorough investigation into human rights violations,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director for the organization.

Both northern and southern Sudan were meant to demobilize tens of thousands of soldiers in a United Nations-backed disarmament program, but few have even begun the process, leaving many parts of this vast and undeveloped region volatile.

Southern Sudanese officials have also been implicated in widespread human rights abuses against the government’s own security officers in a police-training program also supported by the United Nations.

The southern Sudanese rebel groups are fighting for a variety of reasons. General Tang, also known as Tang Ginye, for instance, was a longtime foe of southern Sudan’s ruling party, accused of massacres in 2006 and of being a proxy of the north.

Gen. Peter Gatdet, a rebel who leads the South Sudan Liberation Army, defected last month, and accused the southern Sudanese government of being dominated by ethnic Dinka.