MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Officials allow for salmon transfers in Chaiten volcano area

The Chilean government is reducing the security area around the Chaiten volcano from 50 to 24 kilometers in order to facilitate the rescue of approximately 600,000 salmon located throughout various farming centres in the area.

The volcano erupted on 2 May, and between the night of 23 May and the following Saturday, there have been a succession of tremors in the Comau fjord, which is located 20 kilometres south of Hornopiren in the interior of Pumalin Park. Authorities have decided to transfer salmon to Futaleufu, however, as the column of Chaiten's volcanic gas and ash exceeded the 7,000-metre mark, with recurring eruptions of up to 20,000 metres high, which then later diminished considerably to the 4,000-metre high mark. Reducing the safety area will facilitate the salmon rescue, and constitutes an "urgent" measure in that surrounding predators may break into the pens and release hundreds of fish to the wild, stated the Los Lagos Mayor, Sergio Galilea, EFE reports. "If that were to happen, 'relevant environmental damage' would transpire in the area," explained Galilea. Carabineros - Chile's uniformed national police - were deployed as far as the northernmost point of the bridge on Amarillo River as transfer operations must be coordinated and authorised by the relevant authorities, underlined the official. (FIS)