KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, May 8, CMC – The National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) Tuesday dismissed reports of volcanic activity at the La Soufriere volcano saying that the unsettled weather pattern across the Caribbean may be responsible for the panic among nationals.
NEMO director Howie Prince said that the heavy clouds have been associated with lightning strikes and that “in the early hours of the morning if you look in the direction of La Soufriere volcano …(it) could well have given the impression that there was an erosion of La Soufriere volcano.
“I therefore would like to put at rest the rumour that has circulated far and wide that La Soufriere volcano is erupting. La Soufriere volcano is not, has not, shown any increase in seismic activity recently,” he said on the state-owned National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
The radio station said that it had been receiving calls from all over the island enquiring whether the volcano, which last erupted here in 1979 displacing more than 20,000 people, had once again become active.
But Prince said that NEMO had been in contact with the Seismic Research Unit at the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad and Tobago and the La Soufriere Monitoring Unit here.
He said Seismic Unit has said there is “no increase in seismic activity at La Soufriere volcano.
“Additionally the La Soufriere Monitoring Unit went down to…the north Leeward to have an eye ball situation as to what is happening down there. They also reported there is no increased activity and there is no eruption.
“However what the folks at the monitoring unit sent back to us is a set of photographs that they took which showed that there were cloud formation over La Soufriere volcano and these clouds…really could have given the impression there was a eruption of La Soufriere volcano”.
La Soufrière is the youngest volcanic centre on St. Vincent. It occupies the northernmost third of the island and is considered to be the only volcano that is likely to erupt in the future.
According to the UWI, no detailed geological map of the volcano exists although the principal formations have been identified.
