Posted on 04/09/2021 6:36:06 AM PDT by Red Badger
Authorities ordered mandatory evacuations on the island of Saint Vincent after closely monitoring the activity of the island's volcano and declaring that residents could be in danger.
Saint Vincent is a volcanic island located in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean and is home to La Soufrière, the island's largest volcano.
The University of the West Indies Seismic Research Center, which officially monitors seismic activity in the Eastern Caribbean, noticed gases spewing from the dome of the volcano on Thursday morning.
As seismic activity continued and became more intense, with magma visible near the surface later on Thursday, the country's National Emergency Management Organization raised the island's alert level from orange to red, according to NPR, meaning that eruption was considered "imminent".
Around 6:00 p.m., local time, Thursday, the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, announced in a press conference the evacuation order for residents in "red zones" on the northeast and northwest sides of the island.
This evacuation includes roughly 16,000 people on the island, according to WFAA, a WABC affiliate in Dallas, Texas.
Government-led evacuations immediately began, but they were to be assisted by nearby cruise line ships, arriving Friday, to help get people to safety.
However, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, evacuations are more complicated than usual.
Gonsalves said in his press conference that people have to be vaccinated before boarding a cruise ship or to go to another island. The minister also highly recommended those taking shelter in Saint Vincent be vaccinated.
Even on Friday morning, fresh magma near the surface of the volcano left the sky aglow.
The start of a new day. Long exposure photo taken by volcano seismologist Roderick Stewart at the Belmont Observatory...
Posted by UWI Seismic Research Centre on Friday, April 9, 2021 Geologist Richard Robertson said in Thursday evening's press conference that it could take hours or days for the volcano to erupt.
According to CNN, the La Soufrière volcano on Saint Vincent has had five explosive eruptions in the past, with the most recent being 1979. There was, however, an uptick in seismic activity more recently in December of 2020.
Has Gates been seen anywhere near St Vincent’s volcano recently??
Standing in line for a fake vaccine while awaiting a lung scorching pyroclastic blast...yeah...
Lots of volcanic activity around the world. Are we all gonna die? Probably.
Been to St. Vincent and neighboring island. Scary!
Hopefully, any who claim they aren't going to are lying.
I hope it’s not from anything too serious...
It has erupted https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/st-vincent-rocked-by-explosive-eruption-of-la-soufrière-volcano/ar-BB1ftsaN?ocid=uxbndlbing
I don’t know. The grim reaper has seemed to skip a few and left them here to torment us.
There’s been a lot of volcanic activity around the world since the world began. Probably was worse at the beginning however.
LOL, you can get burned by Lava OR you can choose the vaccine.
The Lady or the Tiger......................
In before Jimmy Buffet.
D'oh.. Now we know why all those people remained in Herculaneum!
Cool island - super friendly and relatively crime free. It’s one I would relocate to if I could bring my business with me. Unfortunately...
Hope there’s not too much damage.
“In before Jimmy Buffet.”
LOL!
Hope all will be safe!
It blew this morning
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