Chile volcano

Thousands flee their homes and flights are grounded as Chilean volcano sends plumes of ash showering down.

The Chilean volcano which erupted on Monday has sent a towering plume of ash across South America, forcing thousands from their homes, grounding airline flights in southern Argentina and coating ski resorts with a gritty layer of dust instead of snow.

Booming explosions echoed across the Andes as toxic gases belched up from a three-mile-long fissure in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic complex - a ridge between two craters just west of the Chilean-Argentine border that began erupting Saturday.Winds blew a six-mile high cloud of ash all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and even into southern Buenos Aires province, hundreds of miles to the north-east.

Raining ash: The plume above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain threw ash up to six miles into the sky