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Chile's long-dormant Chaiten volcano spewed clouds of gray smoke, hot rocks and toxic gas on Tuesday, forcing authorities to order the complete evacuation of two nearby towns, media reports said.

More than 4,000 people left the town of Chaiten, 10 kilometers (six miles) from the volcano, after the initial eruption. Several hundred are still waiting to leave. Futaleufu, 70 kilometers (44 miles) to the east, is also being evacuated.

The volcano's column of smoke and ash stretched more than 19 kilometers (12 miles) into the sky on Monday, Chile's National Geology and Mineral Service reported, and it extended well into neighboring Argentina and to the Atlantic Ocean.



Chilean officials said molten rock was being thrown from the volcano but that no lava flows had been detected.

The five-day-old eruption is the first in at least 9,000 years for the volcano in southern Chile, according to volcanologists at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

A government vulcanologist warned there could be a big eruption at any time.

"There could be a major explosion that could collapse the volcano's cone," said Luis Lara of the National Geologic and Mining Service.



Residents of Futaleufu, a town near the erupting volcano in Chile, wait on a bus to evacuate to Argentina's Esquel City, May 6, 2008

Members of Chilean armed forces watch the smoke rising from Chaiten volcano at Chaiten town, located some 1220 km (760 miles) south of Santiago May 4, 2008. Chile's long-dormant Chaiten volcano spewed clouds of gray smoke, hot rocks and toxic gas on Tuesday, forcing authorities to order the complete evacuation of two nearby towns

Chile's Chaiten volcano erupts south of Santiago in this image captured by NASA's Terra satellite at 10:35 a.m. local time on May 3 and released on May 6, 2008. The image shows a long cloud-like plume of smoke and ash flowing southeast from the summit of the volcano across the Andes mountains, across part of Argentina and then dissipating over the Atlantic ocean