volcano villarrica in southern  chile erupted in the early hours of tuesday, sending ash and  lava over 3,000 feet into the sky, and forcing the evacuation of nearby  communities the volcano, located near the popular tourist resort of  pucon around 750 km (460 miles) south of the capital santiago,  is one of south america's most active it last erupted in 2000 television pictures showed orange lava and ash shooting into  the night sky when it erupted at around 3am local time, although it looked quieter as dawn broke some 3,385  people had been evacuated as a preventative measure, said  interior minister rodrigo penailillo this was partly because of the risk of floods caused by snow melt scroll down for videos  volcano villarrica in southern chile erupted in the early hours of tuesday, sending ash andlava high into the sky, and forcing the evacuation of nearby communities  some 3,385 people had been evacuated as a preventative measure, said interior minister rodrigo penailillo  thousands of nearby residents have been evacuated, partly because of the risk of snow melt from the eruption causing floods  the sight of the volcano erupting was both terrifying and beautiful, with this photograph capturing its sheer ferocity  the government held an emergency meeting with the police and  military in the presidential palace in santiago on tuesday  morning to discuss the situation chile, situated on the so called pacific rim of fire, has  the second largest chain of volcanoes in the world after  indonesia, including around 500 that are potentially active in 2011, the eruption of puyehue sent an ash cloud into the  atmosphere that disrupted flights in neighboring argentina for  months penailillo said experts were flying over the villarrica area  to determine next steps photographer nicolás gallo, who witnessed the blast from his village just just five and half miles away, said: 'it was 3am in the morning and i was sleeping in my house that is in a village in the hills of the city of villarrica, about six miles from it to the west villarrica city is between 14 and 18 miles from villarrica volcano, to the east near the andes 'so i wake up because of my dad and went to see what was happening, the volcano was days before throwing incandescent matter, and suddenly it starts to throw lava an a big wave of smoke 'it was like that for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, not much, then it stopped everything seems to be normal but we are in alert' chile, situated on the so called pacific rim of fire, has the second largest chain of volcanoes in the world after indonesia, including around 500 that are potentially active this is the crater of villarica on monday  in 2011, the eruption of puyehue sent an ash cloud into the atmosphere that disrupted flights in neighboring argentina for months experts flew over villarica (pictured) multiple times on monday to determine how active it was  a view of the volcano from the nearby tourist resort of pucon it erupted at about 3am on tuesday, local time  an eye witness six miles away said that the volcano erupted savagely, throwing lava in the air for around an hour and half  the eruption was visible for miles around, with streams of lava cascading down the side of the volcano  terror: locals leaving their houses after villarica  erupted the national emergency office issued a red alert and ordered evacuations  the volcano is 460 miles to the south of the chilean capital, santiago, on the edge of the andes mountain range 
south america's orange lava the night tuesday interior rodrigo penailillo
the volcano, located near the popular tourist resort of pucon, is one of south america's most active . television pictures showed orange lava and ash shooting into the night sky when it erupted on tuesday . some 3,385 people had been evacuated as a preventative measure, said interior minister rodrigo penailillo 