Volcanoes that have been silent for decades are coming to life in the eastern Caribbean, prompting officials to issue warnings in Martinique and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as scientists rush to study activities they say did not occur . observed in years.
The most recent warning was issued Tuesday evening for La Soufriere volcano in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a chain of islands home to more than 100,000 people. Authorities reported tremors, strong gas emissions, the formation of a new volcanic dome and changes to the crater lake.
The Caribbean Agency for Disaster Emergency Management said scientists on Tuesday observed an “exuberant eruption in the crater, with visible gas and vapor.”
The government has warned those living near the volcano to prepare to evacuate if necessary, by issuing an orange alert that means eruptions could occur less than 24 hours in advance.
Located near the northern tip of the main island of Saint Vincent, La Soufriere last erupted in 1979, and an earlier eruption in 1902 killed about 1,600 people. That happened shortly before Mt Pelee in Martinique erupted and destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre, killing more than 30,000 people.
Mount Pelee was also active again in early December, and officials from the French Caribbean issued a yellow warning due to seismic activity under the mountain. It was the first such warning since the volcano’s last eruption in 1932, Fabrice Fontaine of the Martinique Volcano and Seismological Observatory told The Associated Press.
While the eastern Caribbean is a long chain of active and extinct volcanoes, volcanologist Erik Klemetti of Denison University in Ohio said the activity on Mount Pelee and La Soufriere has nothing to do with each other.
“It’s not that one volcano starts to erupt and another does,” he said. “It falls into the category of coincidence.”
He argued that the activity is evidence that magma is lurking underground and seeping to the surface, although he added that scientists still don’t have a good understanding of what determines how quickly that happens.
“The answers are not entirely satisfactory,” he said. “It’s the science that’s still being researched.”
Klemetti said the most active volcano in recent years in the eastern Caribbean is the Soufriere Hills on Montserrat, which has been continuously erupting since 1995, devastating the capital, Plymouth, and in 1997 killed at least 19 people.
Seventeen of the 19 living volcanoes in the Eastern Caribbean can be found on 11 islands, the remaining two are located underwater near Grenada Island, including one called Kick ‘Em Jenny that has been active in recent years.