The La Soufrière volcano on the Caribbean island has erupted.
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ST.
VINCENT SEISMIC CENTER / AFP
A first for four decades.
The volcano on the Caribbean island of Saint-Vincent erupted on Friday, requiring the emergency evacuation of thousands of inhabitants of this territory of the Lesser Antilles.
A former British colony, the archipelago of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is made up of a main island, Saint Vincent, flanked to the south by the 31 islets of the Grenadines.
Ash fallout was observed as far as the south of the island and Argyle International Airport, closed within an hour of the eruption.
In the afternoon a second eruption took place, "smaller" than the first, according to the National Emergency Management Organization (Nemo).
La Soufrière - not to be confused with the Grande Soufrière in Guadeloupe - has not experienced an eruption since 1979. The largest and most devastating eruption occurred in 1902 and claimed more than 1,000 victims .
More than 2,300 people have taken refuge in 62 emergency shelters, and are currently screened and vaccinated against Covid-19 by the Ministry of Health, said the CDEMA.
Massive evacuation the day before
“Scientists at the Belmont Observatory have confirmed an explosive eruption of the Soufrière volcano at 8.40 am this morning.
Columns of smoke rising up to 8 km high were observed, ”reported the official bulletin of the national emergency management body of the government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
"All people in the red zone of volcanic danger are asked to evacuate immediately," said the bulletin concerning the island of more than 100,000 inhabitants.
“Such majesty in the midst of danger,” Nemo commented while sharing photos of the second eruption, seen from the capital Kingstown.
"Another explosion observed, it is estimated the ash column rose to 4 km in the atmosphere," tweeted for its part the seismic research center of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, another West Indian archipelago.
"Once an explosive eruption has taken place, others are likely to occur," the research center said earlier in the morning at a press conference, warning that "the explosive eruption would probably last several days or even several weeks ”.
The threat of an imminent volcanic eruption in Soufrière had prompted the announcement the day before of an emergency evacuation order for thousands of residents.
Some 16,000 of them live in the most exposed “red” areas.
Carribean neighbors mobilized
Evacuees could be taken to shelters on other islands in the archipelago, or in other Caribbean territories and countries that have offered assistance such as Barbados or Saint Lucia, according to local media.
Antigua and Barbuda stands "ready to receive the evacuees," also told AFP Philmore Mullin, director of the disaster management agency of the neighboring country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
At least four cruise ships from Royal Caribbean and Carnival companies have been diverted to the area to pick up the displaced.
In Martinique, an island near Saint-Vincent in the West Indies, "the seismicity of volcanic origin has increased over the last week" for Mount Pelée, announced on March 26 the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Martinique, dependent on the Paris Institute of Globe Physics (OVSM IPGP).
On this island in the French Antilles, everyone remembers the damage caused by Mount Pelée at the start of the 20th century: its eruption in 1902 - two weeks after that of Soufrière in Saint-Vincent - left some 30,000 dead and wiped out on the map the city of St-Pierre, the little Paris of the Antilles.
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