Thousands flee their homes and flights are grounded as Chilean volcano sends plumes of ash showering down

The Chilean volcano which erupted on Monday has sent a towering plume of ash across South America, forcing thousands from their homes, grounding airline flights in southern Argentina and coating ski resorts with a gritty layer of dust instead of snow.

Booming explosions echoed across the Andes as toxic gases belched up from a three-mile-long fissure in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic complex - a ridge between two craters just west of the Chilean-Argentine border that began erupting Saturday.

Winds blew a six-mile high cloud of ash all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and even into southern Buenos Aires province, hundreds of miles to the northeast.

Raining ash: The plume above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain threw ash up to six miles into the sky

Engulfed in ash: A policeman walks between rocks and ash near the volcano site in southern Chile

Grounded: An aircraft belonging to Austral with ash on it from Chile's Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain remains stranded on the tarmac of the sky resort San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina's Patagonia

Covering: This road near the volcano site was left completely coated in pumice rocks from the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain volcano

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1395070/Thousands-flee-homes-flights-grounded-Chilean-volcano-sends-plumes-ash-showering-down.html#ixzz1OZ53lloR