‘Ghost island’ hit by new volcano blast
ISLANDERS on Saint Vincent were urged to keep calm after a volcano that had stayed quiet for decades blew its top twice – blanketing them in ash and sparking fears of a total evacuation.
Power and water were cut off by yesterday’s eruption of La Soufrière, two days after the first blast had pumped smoke and debris into the sky six miles above the Caribbean isle.
A strong smell of sulphur pervaded the air, while clouds were blocked out the sun, giving the sunshine isle a bleak, twilight look.
Kingstown, capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, was ghost-like too, with ash coating people, rooftops, cars and roads.
In Rabaka, two miles from the volcano, 12in of ash and rock fragments covered the ground and rumbling noises could be heard. Around 16,000 residents have been evacuated.
Saint Vincent’s national emergency agency tweeted: ‘Massive power outage following another explosive event at La Soufrière volcano. Lightning, thunder and rumblings. Majority of the country out of power and covered in ash.’
Prime minister Ralph Gonsalves said more than 3,200 of the 110,000 population were now in shelters. ‘All I’m asking of everybody is to be calm,’ he told reporters. ‘It’s a huge operation that is facing us. So far, we have done well in that nobody got injured, nobody is dead.’
Authorities say they are awaiting geological findings before deciding on further steps. The last eruption in 1979 did $100million of damage. A 1902 eruption killed more than 1,000 people.