Chilean authorities on Sunday issued a red alert—the most severe in their warning system—that the Copahue Volcano in the Andes Mountains on the border with Argentina might erupt. Chile's Geological and Mining Service emphasized that no mandatory evacuations have been ordered around the remote volcano, about 280 kilometers southeast of Concepcion, though the closest roads to it are in Argentina. While the seismic activity suggests a minor eruption, the agency decided to raise the alert level because it could not rule out a major eruption. It warned specifically of the potential for dangerous mudslides within a 15-kilometer radius of the main crater. Seismic stations first detected increased activity Saturday, the agency said. More gas than normal has been measured coming from the volcano. The black ash-filled gas has soared 1.5 kilometers above Copahue and extended 13 kilometers away, toward the southeast. Known in South America as Volcan Copahue, the volcano formed about 500,000 years ago and contains nine craters, according to the Washington-based Smithsonian museum's Global Volcanism Program. Its summit is nearly 3,000 meters above sea level. Mild to moderate eruptions have been recorded at the volcano since the 18th century, and some in the 20th century spewed volcanic rocks and chilled liquid sulfur fragments from its 300-meter-wide crater lake, the U.S. museum says. After three eruptions during the 1990s, Copahue's last significant eruption occurred from July to October 2000, causing damage and mudslides that sparked evacuations.
