The Caribbean island of St Vincent has issued a red alert and issued an evacuation order after seismologists warned that the volcano La Soufrière was showing signs of an impending eruption.
The Prime Minister, Ralph Gonsalves, issued the order on Thursday after several days of increased seismic activity.
The country’s national emergency management organization said on Twitter there was a “great prospect of a disaster”, and warned residents to “be ready, get your stuff in order”.
“Safe areas where people will be evacuated are from North Union to Kingstown, on the Windward side of the island, Barrouallie to Kingstown on the Leeward side and the Grenadine Islands,” Nemo tweeted.
A cruise ship from the Royal Caribbean line went on its way to the island to help with evacuation efforts, Nemo said.
According to St Vincent online newspaper News 784, geologist Richard Robertson said La Soufrière could erupt in a matter of hours or days.
Monitoring stations reported long earthquakes, indicating that fresh magma was trying to reach the surface, indicating that the volcano was moving to an “explosive stage”.
The video showed on social media a plume of smoke towering above the volcano, which is the highest point in the island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
La Soufrière has been increasingly active since November. On Monday, researchers from the University of the West Indies reported that its monitoring station detected a “swarm of small volcanic-tectonic earthquakes”, which gradually increased in magnitude.
‘The earthquakes were at a depth of 6 km below the volcano’s peak. The biggest event reached the magnitude of 3.5 felt by residents living near the volcano, “the UWI said in a statement.
La Soufrière’s most devastating eruption was in 1902 when about 1,600 people, most of them indigenous Caribbean, died.
It last broke out in April 1979, but there were no casualties as the local population was evacuated.