www.yahoo.com
Volcano eruption in St. Vincent brings new worries: Destruction of parts of the country
The eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which saw the eruption of its La Soufrière volcano for the first time in 42 years, woke up Sunday to heavy ash fall everywhere, more explosive eruptions, minor earthquakes overnight and a new worry: the possible destruction of communities from heavy flows of lava droplets and hot gas.
International
The eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which saw the eruption of its La Soufrière volcano for the first time in 42 years, woke up Sunday to heavy ash fall everywhere, more explosive eruptions, minor earthquakes overnight and a new worry: the possible destruction of communities from heavy flows of lava droplets and hot gas.
Lead geologist Richard Robertson said while white-colored volcanic ash covered everything from rooftops and roads to the island’s vegetation, scientists with the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Center were becoming increasingly concerned about the destruction of communities near the volcano.
A video obtained by the team, he said, showed evidence of pyroclastic flows — the fast-moving volcanic ash, lava droplets and hot gas that can incinerate everything in its path, instantly.
“They will tend to boil the sea and they will shoot across the sea as a foam of rapidly moving hot air,” Robertson said. “We don’t have lava flows, the nice flow, running things, that’s red... What we have is fragments of rocks, and boulders and other things that shoot down the mountainside very fast and destroy everything.”