Behind the Scenes,  Personal,  Photography,  Travel

Living in Chile – Volcán Calbuco Eruption

I had a recipe to post today but it seemed a little insignificant in light of the fact that I was watching a volcanic eruption yesterday and half the night last night. My everyday life may not always be as exciting as food but I think molten lava and volcanic ash is pretty sweet.


There were actually two eruptions one started around 6 pm and the second around 1 am. The first one pretty much blew my mind. I mean, I really couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I was all like washing dishes and stuff and look up to see this! How many people get to see this kind of thing in a lifetime? These pictures were all from our house that is about 20 miles away from Calbuco.

It hasn’t erupted since 1972 and hasn’t had a major one since 1961. There was some lightning in the first eruption but not enough to capture in a photo. Although my brother-in-law got a video.

The best part was when the sunset turned the cloud of ash pink and purple!

I’d have to say that the second and more powerful eruption in the night was definitely better. The lightning was incredible and we could hear the lava and feel the rumble from across Lake Llanquihue. I just found out that Calbuco is one of the 3 most dangerous of Chiles over 90 active volcanos and over 500 potentially active ones.

Sorry that the night pictures are fuzzy. In my defense I was only half awake when I took them. Here’s a video that is much much clearer. Doesn’t that last one look kind of like a cross?

We’re literally waiting for the dust to settle now. A family friend who lives a few hours north, which is where the wind has been blowing the ash, sent us a picture of his car covered in ash this morning. I’m not sure how much ash we’ll have settle around here but so far it’s not much.

16 Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.