More than 45,000 animals remain at risk from eating plants and drinking water contaminated by volcanic ashes.
Some 4,500 people have been evacuated from the area of Chile’s Calbuco volcano due to an eruption that caused widespread and lasting economic damage to the region and the nation.
“About 50 percent of Chile’s milk production is located in Los Lagos, so this is effecting the whole industry,’’ Ema Budinich of the National Agriculture Society told the Associated Press.
The region produced about 950 million liters of milk last year, worth about $346 million, Budinich told the newspaper.
Lying dormant since 1972, Calbuco came back to life Wednesday billowing ash about 11 miles high in the initial blast, then several hours later producing a second outburst that turned nighttime sky reddish orange and caused huge lightning bolts to crackle through its ash plume.
Still, with the evacuation, more than 45,000 animals remain at risk from eating plants and drinking water contaminated by volcanic ashes. Experts told the Associated Press that the soil in the area may not recover for over a year.
And although official damage estimates were not available yet, Eduardo Aguilera of the National Fishing Service told the Associated Press that about 20 million fish have died.
“The losses from this eruption are huge, but animals are the ones who are suffering the most,’’ Daniel Patricio Gonzalez, a resident of Ensenada, told the Associated Press. “People have had to sacrifice their sheep because packs of hungry, wild dogs have been eating them.’’
At the foot of the volcano, military officials and some returned Ensenada residents have been clearing the thick soot have covers the town.