beyondbrics

Winter is approaching in the southern hemisphere but as Patagonia’s ski resorts gear up for the high tourist season, it’s not snow falling from the sky, but ash.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, tasted the ramifications of the June 4 eruption of the Puyehe volcano in Chile first hand. He arrived in Buenos Aires on Monday by overnight bus after the ash cloud diverted his flight to the central city of Córdoba because the ash cloud – which had dissipated – had again forced flights at Buenos Aires’ airports to be cancelled.

While Chilean officials were allowing some of the 4,000 residents evacuated from the affected areas to return to their homes, life remained on hold for many. And as the towering ash cloud caused havoc with air travel, disrupting flights in Australia and New Zealand, as well as Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, officials began tentatively counting the cost of the disaster.

Fishing, a key industry for Chile, could have been badly hit. One salmon farming company, Nilahue, reported the loss of more than 4m young fish as the temperature of the Nilahue river shot up to 45 degrees Celsius from five.

Agriculture and shipping have also been seriously affected. That is particularly bad news for an export-orientated economy like Chile’s.

Across the border in Argentina, officials were preparing to declare an agricultural emergency – television images showed a cow trudging through grey sand rather than green grass and visibility was so bad that the trans-Patagonian highway, Route 40, was shut.

In Bariloche, one of the most popular Argentine mountain holiday destinations, diggers were clearing scoop-loads of grey ash blown across the Andes. Electricity cuts were being planned to allow generators to be repaired, schools were shut and the Nahuel Huapi lake had an eerie grey crust. Television pictures showed residents shovelling ash off their roofs, and roads and cars covered in dull dust.

Tourism is one of the area’s major moneyspinners and, according to some estimates, a decision to delay the start of the winter ski season by a fortnight to July 1 in Villa La Angostura and Bariloche will mean a loss of 45m pesos (£7m, $11m, €8m) in cancelled hotel reservations and other lost revenue – this at a time when Argentina’s economy is booming on the back of consumer spending, in part as a hedge against high inflation. June 20 is a holiday in Argentina and with fathers’ day on June 19, tourist centres had been gearing up for a pre-season long weekend.

With the situation still in flux it’s impossible to put a total cost on the disaster. But it is a bitter and expensive blow for for Chile, whose government has vowed to eradicate indigence, after last year’s devastating earthquake.

More ash falls were forecast later on Monday in Patagonia. Retailers, farmers, fishers and transport officials will be watching the winds and praying for change.