Chaiten volacano. Satellite image of a large plume of ash and steam rising from Chaiten volcano, Chile, on 3rd May 2008. The plume stretches across the Andes and Argentina to the Atlantic Ocean (right). This eruption, which began on 2nd May, came after more than 9000 years of dormancy. The ash covered the town of Chaiten 10 kilometres away, causing the population of 4000 to be evacuated by boat. Image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite.