Television footage showed a could of ash billowing into the sky over the town of Chaiten, which lies about six miles (10 km) from the crater.

Authorities evacuated about 160 people from the area. Most of the town’s 4,500 residents were evacuated last year after the volcano, dormant for thousands of years, erupted. The government is planning to relocate the town.

“There has been a significant resumption of activity of Chaiten volcano,” Deputy Interior Minister Patricio Rosende said. “Our security team have observed an increase in the size of a column of ash and smoke, with a deformation to one side.”

“That leads us to presume that there is a collapse of one of the cones,” he added. “This is more proof of the imminent risk in the area. It is a time-bomb.”

National emergency office Onemi said that while there was a large volume of ash, there had been none of the earth tremors or groaning sounds that accompanied activity last year.

The government insists on moving the entire town, but some residents are resisting the plan — to the exasperation of emergency officials.

“The volcano has always been in a state of eruption (since May), that has to be made clear,” an Onemi official said, asking not to be named.

“We have repeatedly said that there is a red alert and that people should not be there, and if that had been respected, then police would not be evacuating people.”

A cloud of debris soared as high as 20 miles (32 km) into the air when the volcano erupted in May and was kept aloft by the pressure of constant eruptions for weeks, covering towns in neighboring Argentina with volcanic ash. (Reporting by Monica Vargas and Simon Gardner)

Chile’s Chaiten volcano spewing ash again | Reuters

Hundreds of earthquakes have hit Yellowstone National Park, raising fears of a more powerful volcanic eruption.

The earthquake swarm, the biggest in more than 20 years, is being closely monitored by scientists and emergency authorities.

The series of small quakes included three last Friday which measured stronger than magnitude 3.0. The strongest since this latest swarm of quakes began on December 27 was 3.9.

No damage has yet been reported but scientists say this level of activity – there have been more than 500 tremors in the last week – is highly unusual.

“The earthquake sequence is the most intense in this area for some years,” said the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. Some of the larger earthquakes have been felt by park employees and guests, according to the observatory.

The swarm is occurring beneath the northern part of Yellowstone Lake in the park. Yellowstone sits on the caldera of an ancient supervolcano and continuing geothermal activity can be seen in the picturesque geysers and steam holes, such as Old Faithful.

About 1,000 to 2,000 tremors a year have been recorded since 2004. The most devastating earthquake in recent history in the Yellowstone region occurred on August 17, 1959, when a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit.

It was centered near Hebgen Lake, Montana and it caused landslides that killed 28 people and caused more than $11 million in damage.

Geysers in Yellowstone National park changed eruption times, and new ones began to erupt. On June 30, 1975, a magnitude 6.4 tremor hit the park.

Professor Robert B. Smith, a geophysicist at the University of Utah and one of the leading experts on earthquake and volcanic activity at Yellowstone, said that the swarm was significant.

“It’s not business as usual,” he said. “This is a large earthquake swarm, and we’ve recorded several hundred. We are paying careful attention. This is an important sequence.”

The last full-scale explosion of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, the Lava Creek eruption which happened approximately 640,000 years ago, ejected about 240 cubic miles of rock and dust into the sky.

Geologists have been closely monitoring the rise and fall of the Yellowstone Plateau as an indication of changes in magma chamber pressure.

The Yellowstone caldera floor has risen recently – almost 3in per year for the past three years – a rate more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923.

From mid-summer 2004 through to mid-summer 2008, the land surface within the caldera moved upwards as much as 8in at the White Lake GPS station. The last major earthquake swarm was in 1985 and lasted three months.

The observatory said similar swarms have occurred in the past without triggering steam explosions or volcanic activity. However, the observatory said there is some potential for explosions and that earthquakes may continue and increase in intensity.

Joe Moore, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, said his office is tracking the events at Yellowstone on a minute-by-minute basis. “It’s being followed very closely,” Mr Moore said.

Fears over earthquake ‘swarm’ at Yellowstone National Park – Times Online

The quake was reported with a magnitude of 6.2 and happened at a depth of 48.2km (30 miles), monitors said.

The epicentre was close to the Pacific coast and 55km (35 miles) west of David, Panama’s third-largest city and home to 125,000 people.

There have been no reports of any injuries of casualties, says the USGS.

People close to the quake contacted local radio stations in Panama to say they had felt strong aftershocks, reported Reuters.

The news agency also reported that the tremors were felt in the Costa Rican capital San Jose, but that authorities there had received no reports of damage.

Panama is located on the Pacific Ring, which forms a belt of seismic activity along the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

A quake measuring 6.1 struck close to David in January this year.

BBC NEWS

Earlier, the agency quoted Chechen deputy emergency situations minister Akhmed Dzhairkhanov as saying that five people died in Saturday’s earthquake. The quake measuring over 5.0 on the Richter scale hit Chechnya at about 1 pm.

Moscow time 9.00 GMT and tremors were felt throughout the neighbouring republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, and the Stavropol region. The epicentre of the quake was at a depth of 10 km below ground in the Shelkovsky district, the Interfax reported.

Buildings were damaged or destroyed in several districts and the Chechen capital Grozny, as well as the cities of Gudermes and Argun, Dzheirkhanov, said.

Earthquake in Russia; 12 killed – Sify.com

Officials said that the quake struck about 31 miles southeast of Panzhihua city in the southwestern Sichuan and added that the tremors were felt as far as Kunming, the capital of neighboring Yunnan province, located about 300 km away.

Local media reports said that the quake destroyed over 1,000 homes and damaged about 400 more in the affected regions. Reports suggested that about 17 people were killed in Sichuan, while five others were killed in neighboring Yunnan Province.

The latest earth quake came as the Sichuan province is struggling to recover from a previous quake which hit the province on May 12th, leaving nearly 70,000 dead, with about 18,000 people still missing.