KINGSTOWN, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — A volcano in
the southern Caribbean that had been dormant for decades erupted on Friday,
spewing clouds of ash and smoke for meters and forcing thousands to evacuate.
اضافة اعلان
The volcano, known as La Soufrière, on the northern tip of
the main island of Saint Vincent, in saint Vincent and the Grenadines, had
started showing signs of renewed activity in late December. It moved into an “explosive
state” on Friday morning, the National Emergency Management Organization said
in a Twitter posting.
The eruption came a day after officials had raised the alert
level following several small tremors detected at the volcano, with clouds of
steam seen erupting from its peak. The country’s prime minister, Ralph
Gonsalves, ordered a full evacuation of the area.
“All arrangements have now kick-started and the process
begins,” Gonsalves said at a news conference Thursday.
“I want to urge all our people to be calm — do not panic,”
the prime minister said. “With God’s grace we will get through this very well.”
As of Friday morning, close to 20,000 people had been
evacuated from the area surrounding the volcano, according to officials.
The coronavirus may complicate evacuation efforts, however,
according to Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’
Seismic Research Center.
“The COVID pandemic is still ongoing, and you’re talking
about moving people for what may be weeks, possibly months,” Joseph said in a
phone interview. “This is a huge cost in terms of a humanitarian effort.”
Gonsalves said on Thursday that in order to board the cruise
ships sent to evacuate people from the island, evacuees must be vaccinated,
while the nearby island nations that are planning to accept refugees will also
require vaccinations.
Islands that have said they would accept evacuees include
Saint Lucia, Grenada, Barbados and Antigua, according to The Associated Press.
Gonsalves also recommended that those who arrive in shelters
on Saint Vincent be vaccinated as well. He said they were trying to reduce the
risk of infecting older people and those with disabilities by putting them in
guesthouses, rather than in shelters, when possible.
“We don’t want to have an outbreak of COVID in the shelters,”
he said.
The population on the main island of Saint Vincent had been
on edge for months in fear of a eruption.
Some still vividly recalled La Soufrière’s last eruption, in
1979, which hurled debris thousands of feet but caused no fatalities thanks to
a hastily arranged evacuation of residents to local beaches. Its ash reached as
far as Barbados, 160km east. An earlier eruption, in 1902, killed nearly 1,700
people.
Cecilia Jewett, 72, a roads supervisor with the government
of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, said she suffered through the 1979
eruption and recalled the scenes of panic and the desperate scramble for water,
the sky darkened by ash and the overpowering stench of sulfur. Her father, she
said, experienced the deadly 1902 event, and told stories of victims buried in
ash, and corpses lying in the streets.
“Those stories come back to my mind on hearing that the La
Soufrière was acting up,” she recalled when interviewed last December. “It’s
just too much. These young people would not understand. They think it’s just an
explosion.”
“The sulfur, what it does to your eyes, your breathing, your
very existence,” she continued. “It was a time I would not want to relive.”
Government officials began conducting outreach last winter
in areas closest to the volcano, briefing residents on evacuation protocols in
case of an eruption, Gonsalves said in an interview in January.
The prime minister acknowledged then the challenges of
conducting emergency operations during the pandemic but said that strict health
protocols — like the obligatory use of masks and social distancing where
possible — would be in place during evacuations and in shelters.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has a population of 110,000
spread across three dozen islands. Most people live around the capital,
Kingstown, on the southwestern coast of Saint Vincent island. Though known as a
boaters’ paradise, the country also has high rates of poverty and unemployment.
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