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Ash clouds may disrupt flights for a week

Ash clouds from erupting volcanoes in Chile and Eritrea disrupted air travel in several countries Tuesday.
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/ Source: The Associated Press

Ash clouds from erupting volcanoes in Chile and Eritrea disrupted air travel in several countries Tuesday.

The cloud of ash spewing from Chile's Cordon Caulle volcano grounded more flights in countries from Uruguay to Australia, forcing Peru's president-elect to cross a river by boat and threatening to delay the start of the continent's football championship.

The schedule of next month's Copa America could be altered if the ash cloud from Chile's volcano keeps grounding flights, Argentine Football Association President Julio Grondona said.

"We're watching it closely and it's for sure that teams are not ready to come to Buenos Aires," Grondona told Argentine broadcaster Radio 10. "The tournament starts July 1 and we hope that within five or six days the problems with the ash will not exist."

Peruvian President-elect Ollanta Humala, who met with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Tuesday, was forced to take a boat across the Rio de la Plata from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Buenos Aires on Monday because flights were grounded.

The main international airports in Argentina and Uruguay were closed, and across the Pacific more Australian flights were canceled because of the ash plume.


The cloud of fine grit can damage airplane engines and it had disrupted hundreds of flights since the volcano began erupting June 4. In areas near the volcano in Chile, about 4,000 people have been evacuated from their homes.

Hundreds of passengers were stuck in terminals as flights remained grounded at Buenos Aires' main airports.

Many of those forced to change their travel plans have been tourists, and resorts in the mountains of Patagonia that have been blanketed with ash say they expect major losses due to the dearth of visitors.

Organizers of the Copa America weren't the only ones worried about the possible affects on a football tournament. Organizers of the club-level Copa Libertadores had talked of delaying Wednesday's match in Uruguay between Brazil's Santos and Uruguay's Penarol due the lack of flights, but the Brazilians managed to arrive Tuesday.

Effects in Australia, New Zealand
In Australia, meanwhile, airlines scrambled to fly out thousands of passengers who had been stranded for two days in Melbourne. More than 70,000 passengers had been stranded in Australia but it was unclear how many still were as flights resumed in Melbourne.

About two dozen flights to and from the southern Australian city of Adelaide were canceled Tuesday.

New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority said the ash will be back in Chile soon, after circling the globe. Even if the eruption were to stop now, however, the agency said Australia and New Zealand can expect at least another week of ash clouds in their airspace.

In Chile, ash stopped falling Tuesday on some small towns near the volcano after leaving a thin film on homes, the governor's office said in Ranco, a province located about 500 miles south of Santiago.

Although seismic activity has lessened, experts have been closely monitoring the eruption while the volcano has been shrouded intermittently by clouds and rain.

In Ranco, authorities on Monday allowed dozens to return to their homes and the provincial government said others returned temporarily to tend to their cattle and other farm animals.

Last week, steaming rivers near the volcano were filled with tons of hot volcanic rocks, and experts said the temperature of the Nilahue River reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit, killing off large numbers of salmon.

The Nilahue River has now cooled to its normal temperature of about 42 degrees Fahrenheit, the Ranco government said. The river, which has been swollen with rainwater in recent days, has deposited large amounts of volcanic rock in Ranco Lake.

Flights delayed in Africa
Meanwhile, in Eritrea, the Nabro volcano that began erupting early Monday prompted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to announce during a visit to Ethiopia that she was cutting short a three-nation African tour.

Ethiopian Airlines spokesman Getachew Tesfa said flights to Sudan's capital, to Djibouti and to northern Ethiopia were on hold Tuesday. He said other flights will continue.

Atalay Ayele of the Geophysical Observatory Center of Ethiopia's Addis Ababa University said the size of the ash cloud is decreasing and that its direction is changing from northwest to southwest. He said it has now reached Egypt and Sudan.

The flight warnings and disruptions come 14 months after air traffic was grounded across Europe after the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

Associated Press writers Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires; Ray Lilley in Wellington, New Zealand; Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia; Luc Van Kemenade in Addis Ababa; and Anita Powell in Johannesburg contributed to this report.