SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Cribs, tents and respirators are on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Louis. Vincent crashed as officials expected to disperse it Saturday, a day after a powerful explosion at La Soufriere volcano uprooted the lives of thousands of people. who evacuated their homes under government orders.
Nations ranging from Antigua to Guyana offered assistance by sending emergency supplies to their neighbor or agreeing to temporarily open their borders to the approximately 16,000 evacuated who fled ash-covered communities with as much personal belongings as they could put in suitcases and backpacks. .
The volcano, which last erupted in 1979, continued to rumble as experts warned that explosive eruptions could last for days or possibly weeks. A previous eruption in 1902 killed about 1,600 people.
“The first explosion is not necessarily the largest explosion this volcano will give,” Richard Robertson, a geologist at the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, told a news conference.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves called on people to remain calm, patient and protect themselves from the coronavirus as he celebrated that no deaths or injuries were reported after the eruption in the northern tip of St. John’s. Vincent does not, part of an island chain that includes the Grenadines. and is home to more than 100,000 people.
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“Agriculture will be badly affected, and we may lose animals, and we will have to repair houses, but if we have life and our strength, we will rebuild it better, stronger, together,” he said. said in an interview with NBC Radio, a local station.
Gonsalves said that depending on the damage caused by the blast, it could take up to four months before life returns to normal. As of Friday, 2,000 people had stayed in 62 government shelters while four empty cruise ships drifted nearby, waiting to take other evacuated people to nearby islands. Those staying in shelters have been tested on COVID-19, and anyone who is positive will be taken to an isolation center.
The first blast occurred Friday morning, a day after the government ordered mandatory evacuations based on warnings from scientists who spotted some kind of seismic activity before dawn on Thursday that means magma is moving near the surface. The blast shot an ash column of more than seven kilometers into the air, with lightning cracking through the large cloud of smoke late Friday.
The volcanic activity forced the cancellation of several flights while the evacuations in some areas were limited due to poor visibility. Officials have warned that Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada can see light asphalt as the 4,003-foot volcano continues to rumble. Most of the ash is expected to flow northeast into the Atlantic Ocean.
La Soufriere had an exuberant eruption earlier in December, prompting experts from across the region to fly in and change the formation of a new volcanic dome and, among other things, the crater lake.
The eastern Caribbean Islands have 19 living volcanoes, including two underwater near the island of Grenada. One of them, Kick ‘Em Jenny, has been active for the past few years. But the most active volcano of all is Soufriere Hills in Montserrat. It has been erupting continuously since 1995, destroying the capital of Plymouth and killing at least 19 people in 1997.