SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Authorities on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent said Thursday they believe an active volcano is in danger of erupting and have ordered mandatory evacuations.
The island’s emergency management office switched the alert level to red and said a Royal Caribbean cruise ship will arrive after nightfall to evacuate those living near La Soufriere volcano. Others are taken to shelters elsewhere in St. Vincent that are outside the danger zone.
About 16,000 people live in the red zone and will need to be evacuated, Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, told The Associated Press.
Evacuation efforts could be hampered by the pandemic.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a news conference that people should be vaccinated if they board a cruise ship or if they are given temporary shelter on other nearby islands.
Gonsalves said he spoke with other Caribbean governments to accept people’s ID cards if they don’t have a passport.
“This is an emergency, and everyone understands that,” he said.
Gonsalves added that he strongly recommends that those who choose to go to a shelter in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, an island chain of more than 100,000 people, get vaccinated.
Joseph said emergency management teams have gone to Red Zone communities and provided transportation to safer locations, including pre-arranged shelters.
“They know who has no transportation because all of this has been researched before,” she said, adding that those who board the cruise ship would not be taken elsewhere, but would remain there indefinitely.
Government officials tweeted that the volcano’s dome in the island’s northern region could be seen glowing at nightfall. The warning issued Wednesday evening follows days of seismic activity around La Soufriere.
Scientists have warned the government of a possible eruption after noticing a specific type of seismic activity at 3 a.m. Thursday that indicated that “magma was close to the surface,” said Joseph.
“Things are escalating pretty quickly,” she said of the volcanic activity, adding that it was impossible to give an exact prediction of what could happen in the next few hours or days.
A team from the seismic center arrived in St. Vincent in late December after the volcano erupted. They analyzed the formation of a new volcanic dome, changes in the crater lake, seismic activity and gas emissions, among other things.
The volcano last erupted in 1979, and an earlier eruption in 1902 killed about 1,600 people.