MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Disappeared glacial lake in southern Chile gradually recovering

Lake Cachet 2 next to a glacier in the south of Chile, which last week swelled and then suddenly emptied is gradually recovering according to Chilean authorities from the Natural Waters System Office, DGA.

Apparently the water bored an 8.5 kilometer tunnel through the glacier and finally emptied into the Baker River causing a mini "tsunami" along its course. Fortunately no one was injured. Chilean glacier scientist Gino Casassa said the melting of the Colonia glacier, which he blamed on rising world temperatures, filled the Cachet Lake and increased pressure on the ice sheet which then escaped through the tunnel. "The remarkable thing is that the mass of water moved against the current of the river" said Casassa who described the situation as "a real river tsunami". "This is a phenomenon that occurs periodically during the summer season, caused by the melting of large masses of ice that swell some lakes," he said. "The basic cause is global warming." According to the latest reports the five kilometers diameter lake in the Aisen Region is being refilled with water from nearby glaciers and the Cachet 1 Lake in the same basin. However the process is slow since the lake is eighty meters below its normal level said Fabian Espinosa head of DGA. In three days Lake Cachet 2 lost 200 billion liters of water because of the melting of the Colonia glacier said Espinosa who said that all the data, films and pictures of the phenomena will be analyzed with the Glacier and Snow Department "so we can have an idea as to how long it will take to recover". "This is a natural phenomenon, really impressive but we know something similar happened four decades ago according to our records. This time it was boosted by climate warming", said Espinosa. Last Monday the Baker River had a flow of 3.570 cubic meters per second at the peak of the torrential spill. But at weekend where the Baker and Colonia rivers meet the flow was back to a normal 816 cubic meters per second and the water temperature was again at 8 degrees from 4 degrees at the moment of the fluvial "tsunami". Espinosa said that temperatures were unusually high during last summer. Last year a similar phenomenon was recorded at the Tempano Lake in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park when it abruptly disappeared. It has since recovered just some of its former volume.