Satellite images and photos shared on social media images captured a thick column rising from the active volcano that began erupting at 8:41 a.m. Plumes of brown ash and smoke drifted higher as they moved northeast, reaching at least 38,500 feet into the atmosphere, nearing the altitude at which many commercial aircraft fly.
“The ash column is starting to fall back down around the volcano,” Erouscilla Joseph, director of the Seismic Research Centre at the University of the West Indies, told The Washington Post “It is possible that there will be some property damage. This could go on for days, weeks, or even months.”
No deaths or injuries have yet been reported.
On Thursday, authorities announced that La Soufrière was an “imminent” threat to erupt, ordering thousands to evacuate from a danger zone on the northern end of the Caribbean island. Emergency management officials issued a red alert after scientists observed tremors on the island’s only active volcano that indicated a heightened risk of eruption as magma broke up rocks and moved near the surface.
Residents near La Soufrière began evacuating the island’s “red zone” on Thursday by traveling to nearby islands, boarding cruise ships or moving into emergency shelters on other parts of St. Vincent. About 5,000 to 6,000 people live in the affected areas, Joseph said.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said he had issued the mandatory order to evacuate at 4:30 p.m. a day earlier, giving authorities roughly two to two-and-a-half hours before nightfall to launch the effort to transport residents to safety. As of Friday morning, he said, about 4,500 had been relocated by minivans and boats.
He said, however, that there had been some “hiccups” due to clogged roads on the northeastern side of the island.
“I don’t want us to panic,” he said. “I want this to be disciplined. I want this to be orderly.”
Theresa Daniel, a spokeswoman for the country’s National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) told The Washington Post that efforts to evacuate communities in the shadow of the volcano were being complicated by low visibility and debris.
“The efforts are a little stymied because of the ash flow,” she said.
Gonsalves said some 2,000 people had been relocated to 20 active shelters, and that more space was being made inside hotels and inns both within the country and in surrounding island nations. He fought back tears as he spoke of the assistance of nearby nations and cruise lines that were mobilizing to aid evacuees.
“It brings home that we are one Caribbean family,” he said.
The NEMO Facebook page became an impromptu window into the tense effort to evacuate nearby communities.
“Look folks the road is packed with everyone,” wrote one Facebook user, JoJo Lynn. “Small island with a large number of vehicles creates no movement in an emergency.
In a statement on social media, the Seismic Research Centre at the University of the West Indies said the ash has begun to fall on the flanks of the volcano and surrounding communities including Chateaubelair and Petite Bordel.
In a bulletin, the National Weather Service warned pilots that volcanic ash could be present in the atmosphere, a significant hazard to aviation. The small metallic filaments contained in volcanic ash can accrete and melt on turbines, choking engines and threatening aircraft.
The plume was tall enough to spark volcanic lightning, with several plume to ground strikes hitting the waters west of the island up to 5 miles away from the volcano. Satellite imagery confirms that most material associated with the plume was drifting east-northeast and would likely pass north of Barbados.
The National Hurricane Center in the United States also issued an ashfall advisory for mariners.
Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruises were providing liners to evacuate Vincentians off the island, including four vessels scheduled to arrive by Friday. Gonsalves said that several neighboring island nations, including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, and St. Lucia, have offered to welcome evacuees.
In addition to mandating vaccinations for cruise ship evacuees, Gonsalves was also “strongly recommending” that anyone entering emergency facilities on St. Vincent be immunized.
Only a small fraction of people in St. Vincent and the Grenadines appear to have been vaccinated. As of early on Friday, just over 10,000 doses had been administered so far to the island nation’s approximately 110,000 residents, according to the Our World in Data project at Oxford University.
In February, St. Vincent and the Grenadines received 40,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from Indian officials. And earlier this week, the country received an additional shipment of vaccine through Covax, an initiative backed by the World Health Organization to distribute doses equitably across the globe.
Video taken by local media outlets showed dozens of evacuees from the danger zone arriving on the southern portion of the island to stay in the emergency shelters, seek refuge with family members or head elsewhere.
Gonsalves said that authorities in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago are also prepared to assist. He has requested that Trinidad and Tobago accept any Vincentians even if they don’t have necessary travel documents to the islands, which are about 175 miles south of St. Vincent.
The active volcano has loomed over the former British colony of more than 110,000 people as a constant threat, with the eruption of May 6, 1902 devastating the island and killing nearly 1,600 people. Advance warning aided the island during the last eruption in April 1979 when no casualties were reported. Other record eruptions include two more, in 1718 and 1812.
