St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ residents advised to prepare for volcano eruption
St Vincent and the Grenadines’ National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) recently gave caution to communities near the La Soufriere volcano to raise their preparedness in the event that a short-notice evacuation becomes absolutely compulsory.
NEMO’s warning came as a change in seismic activity with the volcano’s ongoing effusive eruption alerted monitoring scientists at the Belmont Observatory.
However, as NEMO continues to encourage increased preparedness to residents in the Red and Orange Volcanic Hazard Zone, the alert level stays at “Orange” with evacuation orders yet to be announced.
Out of the four-level scale, Orange is the third highest while Red is the highest alert level.
The orange alert is signaled when there is a highly elevated level of seismicity or fumarolic activity or both, with eruptions possibly occurring with less than 24 hours notice.
Should such an order be given with this alert, residents of the northern third of St. Vincent are to prepare to evacuate at short notice.
In the same statement, NEMO also highlighted on earthquakes associated with the ongoing La Soufriere eruption that have been happening from time to time with also some of the largest quakes being felt as well.
NEMO said that these seismic events “were probably associated with magma movement beneath the dome, although their depth cannot be determined.”
With their seismic network having been updated during the first quarter of 2021, it was the first time that scientists had seen such a multitude of significant movements.
Close monitoring of the volcano’s activity is being done by scientists from the Soufriere Monitoring Unit, the Trinidad-based University of the West Indies (UWI), Seismic Research Center (SRC), and the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO).
Local geologist, Professor Richard Robertson, is leading the team and is working also with an extended group based at the SRC in St. Augustine, Trinidad. Under his wing, they use a variety of techniques to monitor the volcano that are regularly improved and upgraded.