KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – People issued a first warning about the area closest to a volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent. Vincent to evacuate, ignored, ran Saturday to become clear, a day after it erupted with an explosion that shook the ground, as spit out skyward and covered the island in a layer of fine volcanic rock.
The eruption on Friday of La Soufriere – the first major since 1979 – transformed the lush towns and villages of the island into gloomy, gray versions of themselves. A strong sulfur smell was inevitable on Saturday and if covered everything, crawling into houses, cars and noses and obscuring the sunshine that makes the island so popular among tourists.
Chellise Rogers, who lives in the town of Biabou, in an area of St. Vincent, who is considered safe, said she could hear persistent rumble.
“It’s exciting and scary at the same time,” she said. “(This is the first time I’ve seen a volcanic eruption.”
Scientists warn that the explosions could last days or even weeks, and that the worst could yet come.
“The first explosion is not necessarily the biggest explosion this volcano will give,” Richard Robertson, a geologist at the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, told a news conference.
About 16,000 people had to flee from their ash-covered communities with as much possessions as they could pack ashes in suitcases and backpacks. However, there were no reports of anyone being killed or injured by the initial explosion or those that followed. Before it blew up, the government ordered people to evacuate the area at greatest risk around the 4,003-foot volcano after scientists warned that magma was moving near the surface.
Ralph Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of the 32 islands from which the country St. Vincent and the Grenadines exist, told local station NBC Radio that people should stay calm, be patient and try to protect themselves from the coronavirus.
He said officials were trying to find the best way to collect and dispose of the ash, which is an airport runway near Kingstown’s capital, about 20 miles south, and as far as Barbados, about 20 miles. to the east, fell.
“It’s hard to breathe,” the prime minister said, adding that although the volcano was less ventilated, a large ash plume remained. “What goes up must come down.”
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Although Gonsalves said it could take up to four months for life to return to normal, he is confident.
“Agriculture will be badly affected, and we may lose animals, and we will have to do repairs to houses. But if we have life and our strength, we will build it back better, stronger, together,” he said. .
People who did not heed the initial evacuation order rushed them on Saturday. At least a few ash-covered evacuees escaped in small boats and moved to other parts of the main island, making up 90 percent of the country’s total land.
About 3,200 people took refuge at 78 government-run shelters, and four empty cruise ships stood ready to take other evacuees to nearby islands, with a group of more than 130 already on their way to St. Louis. Lucia was taken. Those who stay at the shelters have been tested for Covid-19, and anyone who has tested positive is taken to an isolation center.
Nations in the area, including Antigua and Grenada, have also offered to take in evacuees.
The ash also forced several flights to be canceled, and poor evacuation in some areas was limited. Officials warned that St. Lucia in the north and Grenada in the south may get light asphalt, although most of it is expected to go northeast in the Atlantic Ocean.