SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Volcanoes that have been silent for decades are booming in the eastern Caribbean, prompting officials to issue warnings on Martinique and St. Maarten. Vincent and the Grenadines to issue, while scientists drop in to study activity they say has not been observed in years.
The most recent warning was late Tuesday for the La Soufriere volcano in St. Maarten. Vincent and the Grenadines issued, a chain of islands with more than 100,000 people. Officials said tremors, strong gas emissions, the formation of a new volcanic dome and changes to the crater lake.
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency said scientists observed an “eruption in the crater with visible gas and steam” on Tuesday.
The government has warned those living near the volcano to prepare to evacuate if necessary, and has issued an orange warning meaning eruptions could occur with less than 24 hours notice.
La Soufriere, near the northern tip of the main island of St. Vincent, last erupted in 1979 and a previous eruption in 1902 killed about 1,600 people. This took place shortly before Martinique’s Mt. Pelee broke out and destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre, killing more than 30,000 people.
Mt. Pelee is also active again. In early December, officials in the French Caribbean issued a yellow warning for seismic activity under the mountain. It was the first warning of its kind since the volcano last erupted in 1932, Fabrice Fontaine told The Associated Press with Martinique’s volcanological and seismological observatory.
While the eastern Caribbean is one long chain of active and extinct volcanoes, volcanologist Erik Klemetti of Denison University in Ohio said the activity at Mt. Pelee and La Soufriere are not related.
“It’s not like one volcano is starting to erupt that others will,” he said. “It falls into the category of chance.”
He said the activity was evidence that magma was hiding underground and penetrating to the surface, although he added that scientists did not yet have a very good understanding of what controls how fast it happens.
“The answers are not entirely satisfactory,” he said. “This is science that is still being researched.”
Klemetti said the most active volcano in recent years in the eastern Caribbean was the Soufriere Hills in Montserrat, which erupted continuously since 1995, destroying the capital of Plymouth and killing at least 19 people in 1997.
Seventeen of the 19 living volcanoes in the Eastern Caribbean are located on 11 islands, with the remaining two underwater near the island of Grenada, including one called Kick ‘Em Jenny which has been active in recent years.