- Residents of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were told to be ready to evacuate after a volcano began to expel lava, ash and gas.
- La Soufrière is the highest point in São Vicente and is located near the north end of the country, but it remained dormant for decades before suddenly becoming active on Tuesday, the AP reported.
- The country’s government, which consists of a chain of islands where more than 100,000 people live, has issued an orange alert, which means that the eruptions can occur less than 24 hours in advance.
- Last month, authorities on the neighboring Caribbean island of Martinique issued a yellow alert due to seismic activity under Mount Pelée, the Independent reported.
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Residents of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were told to remain alert when a Caribbean volcano came to life.
La Soufrière is the highest point in São Vicente and is located near the north end of the country, but it remained dormant for decades before it started spitting ash on Tuesday this week, the AP reported.
La Soufrière, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, are in the Windward Islands, close to Barbados and Saint Lucia.
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Steam, gas and a volcanic dome formed by lava that reached the Earth’s surface could also be seen above the volcano, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA).
The country’s government, which consists of a chain of islands with more than 100,000 inhabitants, has increased the alert level for orange, which means that the eruptions can occur less than 24 hours in advance.
La Soufrière last erupted in 1979, but caused no damage due to the warning, while a 1902 eruption caused 1,600 deaths.
In an unrelated incident early last month, authorities on the neighboring Caribbean island of Martinique issued a yellow alert due to seismic activity under Mount Pelée, the Independent reported.
Fabrice Fontaine, of the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Martinique, told the AP that it is the first time that such an alert has been issued since the last eruption of the volcano in 1932.
Monte Pelée also erupted in 1902 and killed almost 30,000 people, making it the deadliest eruption in the entire 20th century.
In December, Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupted for the first time since 2018 and created a 600-foot-deep lava lake, according to NPR.
However, the most active volcanoes in the Americas were Montes Soufrière in Montserrat, which have continuously erupted since 1995 and killed at least 19 people in 1997, Erik Klemetti, a volcanologist at Denison University, Ohio, told AP.