St Vincent volcano eruption: residents urged to evacuate ‘immediately’

Three days after La Soufrière volcano began to erupt on St Vincent, the eastern Caribbean island remains under a shower of ash and subject to severe water restrictions as authorities grow increasingly concerned for the safety of those who refused to evacuate.

La Soufrière, which last erupted in 1979, has been firing an enormous amount of ash and hot gas into the air since Friday morning. In the early hours of Monday, the largest explosion of the current eruption sent pyroclastic flows down the volcano’s south and southwest flanks.

“It’s destroying everything in its path,” said Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’ seismic research centre. “Anybody who has not heeded the evacuation needs to get out immediately.”

There were no immediate reports of injuries or death, but government officials were scrambling to respond to the latest eruption. Approximately 16,000 people who live in communities close to the volcano had been evacuated under government orders on Thursday, but an unknown number have refused to move.

Richard Robertson, from the seismic research centre, told the local NBC Radio that the volcano’s old and new dome had been destroyed and a new crater had been created. He said the pyroclastic flows would have razed everything in their path.

“Anything that was there – man, animal, anything – they are gone,” he said. “And it’s a terrible thing to say it.” Joseph said the latest explosion was on a par with one that occurred in 1902, killing about 1,600 people.

The National Emergency Management Office of St Vincent and the

Grenadines has warned people to expect similar – if not greater – explosions and accompanying ashfalls over the next few days.

The volcanic activity has threatened water and food supplies, with the government forced to drill for fresh water and distribute it via trucks.

Garth Saunders, minister for the island’s water and sewer authority, said it was impossible to protect existing water sources from the ash: “We cannot put tarpaulin over a river.”

The prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, said government officials were meeting on Monday afternoon to talk about difficulties with food supplies. Cots, tents, water tanks and other basic supplies have been flooding into St Vincent as nearby countries rush to help those affected by the eruptions.

At least four empty cruise ships were waiting nearby to take evacuees to other islands that have agreed to temporarily receive them, including Antigua and Grenada. All government sea port employees were asked to report to work.

Gonsalves said it could take four months for normality to return to St

Vincent, part of an archipelago that includes the Grenadines. The majority of the 100,000 inhabitants live in St Vincent.

The Covid pandemic has complicated response efforts. At least 14 new cases have been reported since the eruptions began on Friday, and all those going to shelters are being tested. Those who test positive are taken to isolation centres. More than 3,700 people are being housed in 84 government shelters.

Rhiannon West, originally from south-west England, but who has lived on St Vincent with her partner since December 2019, said they were out of water, adding that she was worried about breastfeeding her six-month-old son. “I’m noticing that my milk is very low, which is scary – probably the scariest thing,” she told the Guardian.

West, 28, said she had hung damp sheets across doorways and windows to stop ash blowing in, but called on the British government to evacuate her family for her son’s sake. “He can’t even breathe clean air and we don’t know if there’s ash coming through gaps in the windows,” she said.

“We want the British government to get us out. I don’t understand what more they need to see that it’s a crisis. What more do we need to experience for it to be considered a crisis? I know the Barbadian coastguard are helping people to get off who are still stuck in the north, so the seaports are open.”

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said there were “no plans for further evacuations” beyond those already ordered by the government of St Vincent, adding: “British

Nationals in the area should follow the advice of local authorities.”

It said the British government was providing emergency assistance and had provided an initial £200,000 to support the regional response, through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.

Nadia Huggins, a visual artist and photojournalist who lives on the south of the island, said locals and the island’s authorities were doing their best to help people as the rain turned the ash coating St Vincent into thick sludge, and amid the water shortages and continuing pandemic.

“I think Covid was definitely a major concern before this happened,” said Huggins. “But people are so preoccupied with just being OK and coping and being able to breathe properly at the moment that I don’t think anybody is thinking about Covid right now, although the ministry of health still has major concerns about that and has put things in place to try to curb that.”