After 9,000 years of silence, Chile's Chaitén volcano is erupting with lava, ash and lightning . Since the volcano awoke on May 2, it has continued erupting intermittently, blanketing the area in ash and forcing more than 4,000 people to flee. The mingling of lightning and ash seen above may be a "dirty thunderstorm." The little-understood storms may be sparked when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges—just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the volcano last erupted around 7420 B.C., according to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program.
Photographed on May 4 from the evacuated town of Chaitén, Chile's Chaitén volcano has sent ash as high as 12 miles into the sky prompting a total evacuation of the provincial capital and
other settlements. Rains following the eruption have carpeted surrounding areas in ash and mud. Hard hit is Chaitén, a small provincial capital of wooden houses and cobblestone streets just six miles (ten kilometers) from the volcano in southern Chile. Officials in Argentina also reported ash fall over wide areas in the southern part of the country
Ash covers the Yelcho River near Chaitén, Chile, on May 4, 2008, after an eruption of the Chaitén volcano.
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