KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves Wednesday said Cabinet is to decide soon whether it will accept a recommendation from scientists to lower the alert level for some parts of the island as the seismic activity at the La Soufriere volcano remained low for yet another day.
The roofs of several buildings in Owia collapsed after the volcano spewed more than one foot of ash on the Red Zone community. (iWN /CMC Photo)But Gonsalves, speaking on the state-owned NBC Radio, also warned nationals to brace themselves for possible floods and landslides as the Meteorological Office is predicting inclement weather over the next few days.
“We may have some rains as we get to the weekend. I hope we don’t have it excessively,” Gonsalves said, recalling that a few weeks ago when the island experienced heavy rainfall, it led to floods and landslides across the island, as well as lahars (mud flows) from the volcano.
“If we get rains, it means also that we have to be extremely careful as we saw with the lahars,” he said.
Gonsalves said that the Cabinet will decide whether to go on “Orange Alert” indicating that people can go back to the Orange Area safe and except some particular areas like Chateaubelair , a large fishing village on the Leeward (west) coast ….where they still have a lot of ash.
“We do not want people to go back where they have a lot of ash still. Give the government some time to clear up and to deal with some other practical socio-economic issues on the ground and physical questions,” he told radio listeners.
Seismologist Dr. Roderick Stewart of the Seismic Research Centre (SRC) of the University of the West Indies (UWI) said it has been 10 days since the last explosion of La Soufriere that first erupted explosively on April 9, resulting in thousands of people having to be evacuated from their homes and placed in shelters.
Stewart, who is due to leave here on Friday, said “there has been no signs of another explosion coming so our recommendation was to go back to the Orange Alert.
“But it was with the proviso explosions could still occur within 24-hour period without warning and therefore people have to stay out of the Red Zone because that’s the real danger zone,” Stewart said, adding that going back to the Orange level “and the Orange Zone can be re-occupied”.
Stewart also reiterated his concerns that people were going on hikes and other excursions into the Red Zone areas.
“They are not only endangering their own lives, they are endangering the lives of the rescue personnel who have to come and rescue them if there is an accident. We should be strongly telling people they should not exploring because it is not safe at the moment “.
In its latest bulletin, the SRC said that seismic activity at La Soufrière has remained low since the tremor associated with the explosion and ash venting on 22 April.
“In the last 24 hours, only a few long-period, hybrid and volcano-tectonic earthquakes have been recorded and there was no further seismic tremor,” it said, adding “the volcano continues to be in a state of unrest.
“Explosions with accompanying ashfall, of similar or larger magnitude to those that have already occurred in this eruption, can take place with little or no warning. The volcano is at alert level Red.”
