A seis­mic sta­tion lo­cat­ed in Greiggs, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines (SVG), was van­dalised and equip­ment stolen, ear­li­er this week, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the Na­tion­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Or­gan­i­sa­tion (NEMO).

The NEMO state­ment said:

“The Soufriere Mon­i­tor­ing Unit vis­it­ed the site at Greiggs on 30th March, 2022 where a seis­mic sta­tion is in­stalled. The wires to the seis­mic sta­tion were cut and the so­lar pan­el re­moved. This site was es­tab­lished in June 2021 af­ter the ex­plo­sive erup­tions of the vol­cano. This means that no da­ta is avail­able from this site.”

NEMO added:

“The Na­tion­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Or­gan­i­sa­tion (NEMO) is mak­ing an ur­gent plea for mem­bers of the pub­lic NOT TO TAM­PER WITH OR RE­MOVE ANY EQUIP­MENT THAT IS USED TO MON­I­TOR AC­TIV­I­TY AT THE LA SOUFRIÈRE VOL­CANO.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion has is­sued an ur­gent call for in­for­ma­tion on the in­ci­dent so that ac­tion can be tak­en.

“NEMO is urg­ing any­one with in­for­ma­tion on dam­age to the seis­mic sta­tion to re­port it to the near­est po­lice sta­tion or con­tact the Roy­al St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines Po­lice Force at +1 (784) 457-1211 or +1 (784) 456-2906.”

Dr. Er­ous­cil­la Joseph, Di­rec­tor of the Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre, ex­pressed con­cern about the Cen­tre’s work be­ing ham­pered by the in­ci­dent:

“This sta­tion forms part of the im­proved net­work for mon­i­tor­ing the La Soufrière vol­cano. With­out this equip­ment we can­not mon­i­tor earth­quakes or the vol­cano ef­fec­tive­ly. This is a re­al con­cern as giv­en the re­cent erup­tions in 2020-2021, La Soufrière must be close­ly mon­i­tored at all times to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty”.

It was on­ly on March 17th that the Vol­cano Haz­ard Alert Lev­el for La Soufrière was down­grad­ed to GREEN by the SVG au­thor­i­ties, af­ter it was de­ter­mined that seis­mic ac­tiv­i­ty at the vol­cano has been de­creas­ing steadi­ly, and was back to pre-2020-2021 erup­tion lev­els.

The in­ci­dent came as St Vin­cent and the Grenadines un­der­took sev­er­al emer­gency and evac­u­a­tion readi­ness ex­er­cis­es, as part of its ob­ser­vance of Earth­quake and Tsuna­mi Aware­ness Month, dur­ing March 2022.