translated from Spanish: Sernageomin decrees orange alert after abnormal activity on Copahue volcano and increases exclusion radius

The National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin) on Monday raised to orange alert, the second highest level, the situation of the Copahue volcano, after recording abundant long-term seismicity near the crater.
The director of the agency, Alfonso Domeyko, explained that the alteration of the alert situation was due to the record of “an abnormal activity of the volcano”, located in the Bíobío region.
“What is important is that the various institutions of the Civil Protection System have technical information about what is happening, including the potential hazard map,” Domeyko added, according to a statement published on the Sernageomin website.
The change in the condition of the Copahue volcano led to the establishment of a 5-kilometer exclusion area around the active crater and a technical table was convened to determine the courses of action.
In addition, it was indicated that a more thorough control of the volcano’s development will be carried out from now on, although they noted that current bad weather conditions in the area do not allow its visualization through the 24-hour cameras that monitor the activity.
The Copahue had been on yellow alert since April 5th and had not generated any alarm situation until now despite being one of the active volcanoes in Chile.
The last recorded activity corresponds to vapor and ash emissions from its crater reaching heights of up to 3.7 kilometers.

Original source in Spanish