By: Staff Writer
January 12, 2021
The National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) on St Vincent and the Grenadines, posted new photos of the growing La Soufriere dome on their Facebook page leaving commenters stunned at the growth over the last two weeks.
See comparison:
December 31, 2020 (Taken by the UWISRC team)
January 6, 2021 (Taken by NEMO)
January 9, 2021 (Taken by NEMO)
Commenters to NEMO’s Facebook page however are concerned and are wondering when the government of SVG will order an evacuation of the island over the possible explosive eruption of the volcano, which researchers from the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre (UWISRC) said previously can blow within less 48 hours.
Jasmine Parris said: “People always going to visit the volcano now the volcano planning to return the favour and visit us everyone want to run from it lol on a serious note we need to be prepared”
Trevor de Freitas, said: “This Baby Dome is growing up really fast. Like most children I believe that she will get bigger than Mama Dome. WE MUST BE PREPARED FOR AN EXPLOSIVE ERUPTION AT ANYTIME!”
Gloria Creese, said: “Wow it looks considerably larger than last week’s dome.”
Ricer Warrican, said: “A lot of [people are] making fun of what’s taking place at the volcano, but if you never been up the volcano and gone down in the crater before then you won’t get full scale of the potential danger of what’s going.”
He added: “I’ve [gone] to that volcano 13 times and been down in it four times so I have a very good idea the size of what’s down there…. Go research a volcano called Krakatoa then you would understand the potential of what’s up there. The media only tells you what they want you to know”
Dr Richard Robertson, professor of geology and past director of the UWISRC, who is on the ground now in the SVG monitoring the volcano’s activity, told Dr Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of SVG and members of the media at the end of December that Soufriere is at an “effusive stage” and if it can come to an “explosive stage” that persons have less than 48 hours to evacuate, but he and his team are monitoring and there would be enough time to evacuate the island.
Other reports have placed the evacuation time to as little as less than 24 hours, as reported by the United Kingdom’s Guardian and several other sources.
Dr Robertson’s last message about the volcano was on January 4 as posted on the UWISRC YouTube page.
A Bulletin sent out by NEMO on January 10 said that from aerial shots the dome continues to grow and that the dome that “broke through on December 27, 2020, on the south-west perimeter of the existing dome, continues to grow within the crater of La Soufrière and has an ellipsoid shape with growth expanding in a westerly direction.”
Despite this the alert level remains at Orange for the island. The volcano continues to exude magma on the surface and steam can still be observed.