Residents of Saint Vincent look at a plume of smoke rising from the La Soufrière volcano on April 9.STRINGER / Reuters
The eruption of La Soufrière volcano, on the island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in the southern Caribbean, has left at least 16,000 people evacuated and electricity and water cuts, in addition to a scenario that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves described as "Desolate" with vegetation, houses and roads covered by a thick layer of ash.
The explosive episodes, associated with tremors, lightning and thunder and intense ash fall, have continued since Friday morning, when the volcano erupted after being dormant for more than four decades.
The Seismic Research Center of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago (UWI), which is monitoring the activity of La Soufrière, has reported this Sunday that ashfall has been reported on the islands neighboring the Grenadines, Saint Lucia and Barbados, the latter 179 kilometers east of Saint Vincent.
"It is likely that the explosions accompanied by ash fall of a similar or greater magnitude will continue in the coming days," said the agency in a statement.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has confirmed that a good part of the island, of more than 100,000 inhabitants, is without electricity or water and reported the closure of airspace due to the lack of visibility caused by plumes of smoke and volcanic ash.
The president has urged the population in mandatory evacuation areas to comply with the orders issued by the Government.
Since last Thursday, some 16,000 people have been evacuated.
Some left the island on cruise ships or boats, while some 3,000 are in government-authorized shelters in safer areas of the island.
The eruption of the La Soufriere volcano, in pictures
Images released by the UWI Center for Seismic Research show vegetation covered by a dense gray layer and roads turned into quagmires by the mixture of volcanic materials and water.
"There is a lot of smoke and ash in the air and it feels like night," said Lennox Lampkin, a farmer from Kingstown, the capital, in the south of the island.
In a transmission through his Facebook account, the man tells how he has protected almost all his animals so that they are not affected by poor air quality and shows his concern for the avocado, grapefruit, guava and mango trees of the that lives.
"If it doesn't rain hard, I can lose everything," he lamented.
According to UWI geologist Richie Richardson, La Soufrière's activity pattern is similar to what it had in 1902 when pyroclastic material from the volcano reached nearby towns in the north of the island, which lived off the sugar industry, and left more than 1,000 dead.
The last time La Soufrière volcano erupted was on April 13, 1979, exactly 42 years ago.
"Besides the columns of smoke, the most dangerous thing this time may be the pyroclastic flows of lava that go down the slopes of the volcano destroying everything in their path," said Professor Richardson in statements to local radio NBC.
As with the onslaught of hurricanes to which they are accustomed in the Caribbean islands, the eruption of the volcano in San Vicente has generated the solidarity of the neighboring islands.
On Saturday, two Barbados Navy ships were deployed to Saint Vincent to offer humanitarian assistance and countries such as Antigua and Barbuda and Guyana have also offered assistance and made their territory available to receive evacuees.
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