Volcano in Chile Leaves Huge Ash Cloud

Chile's Puyehue volcano was calm Sunday, one day after raining down ash and forcing thousands to flee, although the cloud of soot it had belched out still darkened skies as far away as Argentina.

A light drizzle rained down on the volcano Sunday, helping to mitigate the effects of the airborne ash somewhat, while the mountain appeared to go quiet one day after having rumbled to life.

Puyehue is located 540 miles south of the capital Santiago in the Cordon Caulle complex nestled in the Andes mountains. Its last major eruption was in 1960, following a magnitude 9.5 earthquake.

Bariloche, a Patagonian resort town about 62 miles east of the volcano, remained under a state of emergency because of the eruption, which had covered the small city of some 50,000 inhabitants by a sooty blanket of several centimeters (inches) thick.

The National Service of Geology and Mining said the explosion that sparked Puyehue's eruption produced a column of gas 10 six miles high.

"You can see the fire (in the volcano) and a plume of smoke, and there's a strong smell of sulfur," top Los Rios region official Juan Andres Varas told reporters.

The government, which ordered the evacuation of 600 people immediately after the eruption, over the course of Saturday expanded that number to 3,500 people to be relocated to shelters in safe areas.