(By Ernesto Cooke) – The Caribbean island of St Vincent is now on red alert and an evacuation order has been given as the La Soufriere volcano shows signs of an imminent eruption. The islands Prime Minister made the announcement on Thursday afternoon in Kingstown.
The Prime Minister this afternoon said he received communication from UWI Professor Richard Robertson stating that matters have deteriorated further at La Soufriere.
Roberston said that sometime after 1 pm today there were more tremors accompanied by heavy gas at the volcano.
With immediate effect all areas in the RED zone on the Leeward and Windward will be evacuated, the Prime Minister said.
At a press conference, earlier today geologist Richard Robertson said signals show La Soufriere could erupt in a matter of hours or days.
In a UWI Seismic youtube update earlier this week, Robertson said that La Soufriere has been displaying signs of “unhappiness”, and all indications were pointing to possible eruption.
At today’s press conference, Robertson also indicated that at 3 am Thursday, monitoring stations reported low-level seismic activity, with four different ones at varying times, with the latest at 10 am.
Long-period earthquakes were also reported; all these mean that fresh magma is trying to reach the surface.
Robertson says the earliest period that shows an explosive eruption is in the next few hours or days.
