All airports are shut down in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the ashfall from the erupting La Soufriere volcano is so thick, that smaller boats trying to evacuate residents are being forced to turn back.
Director of the Agency for Public Information and journalist in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Jennifer Richardson yesterday described an almost end-of-the-world scenario of the bucolic islands. Richardson is currently based at the Emergency Operations Centre in Kingstown and spoke with Guardian Media about the unfolding situation.
“As of this morning (Friday), all the air spaces are closed. Nothing open,” she said.
“The visibility because of the ashfall is really poor and on the sea, it is even poorer, some of the boats doing the evacuations this morning, would have turned back because they couldn’t see where they were going,” she said.
Richardson said the volcano had one dome and now a second one was visible.
She said that the dome was extremely large and the rim was right up to the tip of the volcano.
“It is a scary situation,” she added.
Richardson described a chaotic situation and said that the explosive eruption early yesterday left ash shooting some 29 feet in the air.
“We would have experienced, those close to the volcano would have reported ashfall, ashfall around the volcano would have blown out to sea,” she said.
Richardson said that the tremors are continuing.
“The evacuation is continuing this morning, the majority of persons have been evacuated but there are few persons in the red zone that are refusing to leave,” she said.
Richardson said that while people are being advised to leave, evacuation is mandatory.
“But we are asking people to understand that it is a dangerous situation,” she said.
On Thursday, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gonslves said that between 18,000 and 20,000 persons needed to be evacuated but Richardson said that number included people from the red and orange zones.
“The majority of those persons would be in the orange zones,” she said.
Richardson said that the majority of red zone residents have been evacuated.
“That figure is closer to 5,000 who would have left the area last night and we would have had just over 2,000 in shelters because some people sorted out their own accommodations,” she said.
Richardson predicted a “headache” when the people in the orange zones have to be moved because those numbers are larger.
“Much, much more communities,” she said.