Chile's Calbuco volcano erupts again

The Calbuco volcano in southern Chile erupted Thursday for the third time in a week, blasting menacing dark gray clouds of ash and rock 2½ miles high.

Nearby residents who had returned to clean up from two previous eruptions were once again ordered to leave their homes when the 6,500-foot mountain erupted about 1:10 p.m. (12:10 p.m. ET.)

After lying dormant for 40 years, Calbuco came to life April 22 with an enormous, 11-mile-high explosion of ash -- more than 200 million tons, scientists estimated.

A 12-mile exclusion zone was declared around Calbuco, and an additional 1,500 people were evacuated Thursday, said Interior Minister Mahmud Aleuy, Reuters reported

"We were working, cleaning the ash and sand from our homes when this third eruption took place," a sobbing Horacio Camano told the Associated Press after he and his family fled the town of Ensenada. "I feel so much anger and impotence it just breaks me apart."

Winds were pushing ash clouds southeast toward Argentina, officials said. So far, commercial air traffic was not affected, unlike last week when flights were canceled as far as Buenos Aires, nearly 900 miles away.

"If the volcano is still spewing ash on Friday night and on the weekend, a change in wind direction could then carry the ashes to Buenos Aires and thus cause flight delays," said AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Jim Andrews.

Though Thursday's eruption was smaller than last week's, officials told Reuters they were concerned that heavy rain or snow Friday unleash lahares -- powerful, fast-moving flows of volcanic debris that can obliterate everything in their way.

In early March, farther north in the Chilean Andes, one of South America's most active volcanoes, Villarrica, let loose with a spectacular 3 a.m. eruption that chased thousands from their beds about 400 miles south of Santiago.

Contributing: Associated Press