Will Knott

Tormenta eléctrica en erupción del volcán Chaitén.

Image by fmg2001 via Flickr

Those words mean very little, but the set of photographs created by Carlos Gutierrez (I love photo number 9) is amazing. The English translation of the story is a lot more prosaic than the imagery of damnation which looks like it escaped from the book of revelations.

Chaitén volcano in Southern Chile erupted on May the second, and grew more violent on May the fifth. The eruption caused ionisation of the air above the volcano, which caused an electrical storm. So you have a thunder and lightening storm in the middle of an active volcano’s smoke plume. The result is a set of photos that wouldn’t be believed if produced by a movie company.

So what about actual video footage of the eruption/storm combination? About 22 seconds in you can see the storm unleashed, but the sounds has got to be subdued.

take care,
Will Knott