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SANTIAGO (BNO NEWS) -- The Chilean government on late Wednesday afternoon declared a Red Alert for the country's Aysén region after a significant increase in seismic activity at Mount Hudson, forcing nearly 100 people to evacuate. The National Office of Emergency of Chile's Interior Ministry (ONEMI) initially declared a Yellow Alert for the area, but later raised it to Red after seismic activity continued to increase. It ordered about 100 people in a radius of 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) to evacuate. Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter said the decision was taken after regional authorities and scientists flew over the volcano, noting...

Should anyone ever decide to make a show called "CSI: Geology," a group of scientists studying a mysterious and rapidly inflating South American volcano have got the perfect storyline. Several universities are essentially working as geological detectives, using a suite of tools to piece together the restive peak's past in order to understand what it is doing now, and better diagnose what may lie ahead. It's a mystery they've yet to solve. Uturuncu is a nearly 20,000-foot-high (6,000 meters) volcano in southwest Bolivia. Scientists recently discovered the volcano is inflating with astonishing speed. "I call this 'volcano forensics,' because we're...

Uturuncu is a nearly 20,000-foot-high (6,000 meters) volcano in southwest Bolivia. Scientists recently discovered the volcano is inflating with astonishing speed. "I call this 'volcano forensics,' because we're using so many different techniques to understand this phenomenon," said Oregon State University professor Shan de Silva, a volcanologist on the research team. Researchers realized about five years ago that the area below and around Uturuncu is steadily rising — blowing up like a giant balloon under a wide disc of land some 43 miles (70 kilometers) across. Satellite data revealed the region was inflating by 1 to 2 centimeters (less than...