FISH FARMING TECHNOLOGY
Rising from the ashes:
Camanchaca’s case A sudden eruption of the Calbuco volcano left a hatchery buried under 600 kg/m2 of ash and volcanic sand, leaving structural damage to the entire facility... but natural disasters don’t paralyse Chileans! by Franco Vera
Salmones Camanchaca’s hatchery in Ensenada, close to Petrohue river in southern Chile, was badly affected in April 2015 by a sudden eruption of the Calbuco volcano, which was inactive for more than 40 years. Today, it looks as if nothing had happened, and the brand-new facility has become again an example of state-of-the-art RAS technology. Salmones Camanchaca’s hatchery in Ensenada is located on the road that connects the towns of Ensenada and Ralun in the Los Lagos region of Chile. It is a global benchmark for recirculation technology, and the first to use this technology in early 2000´s and is among the largest in the world, producing 12 million smolts-per-annum. A visitor would never suspect that only four years ago, this land was fully covered by ashes from the bottom of the earth lifted by the neighboring volcano, Calbuco.
People working on the day of the eruption felt some slight tremors. Hugo Cajas, Camanchaca’s hatchery’s Head Officer, reported “initially nothing strange was felt, considering that Chile is a seismic country, however, we started to received photos from a distant town, displaying an impressive plume emerging from Volcano Calbuco. We started to realise the magnitude of the event”. Some employees went outside the hatchery to watch the neighboring volcano, located approximately 30 kilometers away, and noticed a gigantic mass of ashes and volcanic sand from the volcano’s explosions, which started to cover the facility completely. This ash plume was one of the largest ever recorded in Chile. Everyone followed the company’s strict safety protocols and left the plant. Hugo Cajas recalls; our foremost critical concern was
38 | July 2019 - International Aquafeed