The La Soufriere Vol­cano in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines con­tin­ues to erupt, with the lat­est ex­plo­sive erup­tion in­clud­ing a mas­sive py­ro­clas­tic den­si­ty tak­ing place at 4.15 am on Mon­day.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the Na­tion­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Or­gan­i­sa­tion (NEMO) di­rec­tor Michelle Forbes, this was one of the largest erup­tions to date.

This flow has de­stroyed La Soufriere’s pre-ex­ist­ing domes (1979 and 2020-21) and the cur­rent ex­plo­sions are be­ing gen­er­at­ed from a new vent.

Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic de­fines a py­ro­clas­tic flow as a dense, fast-mov­ing flow of so­lid­i­fied la­va pieces, vol­canic ash and hot gas­es.

It is ex­treme­ly hot, be­tween 200 to 700 de­grees Cel­sius, burn­ing any­thing in its path and may move at speeds as high as 200 miles an hour. Py­ro­clas­tic flows de­stroy any­thing in their paths and peo­ple can­not out­run them be­cause of their high speeds.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre said since mid­day on April 11, the time be­tween episodes of high-am­pli­tude tremor has length­ened from one and a half to four hours to five to eight hours. The Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre said episodes con­tin­ue to co­in­cide with pe­ri­ods of en­hanced vent­ing or ex­plo­sive ac­tiv­i­ty and small vol­cano-tec­ton­ic earth­quakes were record­ed start­ing around 6 pm on April 11.

The ex­plo­sions and ac­com­pa­ny­ing ash fall are like­ly to con­tin­ue to oc­cur over the next few days. The UWI Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre said these events may be sim­i­lar to larg­er in mag­ni­tude.

But, the is­land’s Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Col­in John who spoke to CNC3’s the Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day said there are still some peo­ple in the red and or­ange zones close to the vol­cano who do not want to evac­u­ate.

He said so far, there have been no re­ports of any deaths but there are ar­eas that are com­plete­ly cut off be­cause of ash­fall and a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of peo­ple have been dis­placed or re­lo­cat­ed.

He said there was not much the po­lice could do to phys­i­cal­ly re­move those who do not want to leave.

“The gov­ern­ment may have to is­sue a state of emer­gency I don’t know if that’s a path that the gov­ern­ment may choose to go, that is be­yond me, but ab­sent of that, we can­not lit­er­al­ly lift them up and bring them out of the zone,” John said. 

And Cari­com na­tions and oth­er coun­tries are lin­ing up to as­sist Vin­cen­tians.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young said 50 sol­diers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fense Force are ex­pect­ed to sail to St Vin­cent to­day on the Galleons Pas­sage to car­ry sup­plies and as­sist the is­land.

The ves­sel will al­so bring home T&T cit­i­zens who are in St Vin­cent. On Sun­day St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Camil­lo Gon­za­les, wrote to T&T’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne.

Gon­za­les said a num­ber of homes have been de­stroyed so far by the erup­tions. Gon­za­les said most crops on the is­land and un­told live­stock will al­so be lost.

He said the im­me­di­ate dan­ger is the com­fort, care and safe­ty of evac­uees. Gon­salves said im­me­di­ate needs are wa­ter, bed­ding, res­pi­ra­to­ry equip­ment and sup­plies, and san­i­tary prod­ucts for ba­bies/el­der­ly/women.

Sev­er­al lo­cal NGO’s have start­ed col­lect­ing re­lief items to ship to the SVG in the com­ing days.

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gon­salves took to his Twit­ter ac­count yes­ter­day to an­nounce help from Venezuela. He said, “Our broth­ers and sis­ters from the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela have come to our aid, send­ing a ship with much-need­ed sup­plies and equip­ment. We are eter­nal­ly grate­ful for the gen­eros­i­ty of Com­rade @Nico­las­Maduro , the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Venezuela.”

Dr Gon­salves al­so used the so­cial me­dia plat­form to thank his St Kitts and Nevis coun­ter­part Dr Tim­o­thy Har­ris, who pledged $1 mil­lion EC in fi­nan­cial sup­port, to ac­cept 300 Vin­cen­tians to stay on the is­land, troops for peace­keep­ing and oth­er forms of as­sis­tance.

The SVG Prime Min­is­ter said, “Thank you my broth­er @pmhar­riskn and the peo­ple of St Kitts and Nevis for the gen­er­ous pledge of sup­port dur­ing this very chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion fac­ing us here in Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines.”

The Unit­ed King­dom has al­so joined the list of coun­tries ready to as­sist and has pro­vid­ed an ini­tial £200,000, via the For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice to sup­port the re­gion­al re­sponse, through the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA).