ST GEORGE'S, Grenada Just when they were beginning to think that most of the year's misery was behind them, Caribbean disaster mitigation experts have found themselves tackling a new threat.
The threat is posed by an underwater volcano 90 miles (145 km) off the Grenada coast, called Kick 'em Jenny. The summit of the volcano is located 12.30 degrees north, 61.63 west. Some 500 metres in diameter, the summit is widely believed to be 150 metres below the surface of the sea, in the southern Grenadines. At 1 200 metres high, the volcano is listed as the tallest mountain in the region. It is also the most active volcano in the area and one of 105 underwater volcanoes in the world. The volcano has been creating small earthquakes and eruptions since the start of this month but appears to be calming down, according to volcano watchers.
But in a worst-case scenario, scientists say a major eruption of Kick 'em Jenny could trigger giant waves, or tsunamis, that could sweep hundreds of miles across the Caribbean, posing a severe threat to low-lying coastlines. They listed Grenada, Barbados, St Vincent and Trinidad among the countries that could be impacted by the deadly tidal surge.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the National Emergency Management Agency, immediately warned coastal communities of Tobago and north Trinidad they could be hit if the state of alert on the volcano being monitored there by the University of the West Indies' Seismic Unit, was upgraded from orange to red. It urged them to be prepared for sudden relocation and to keep monitoring their radios for any change in the level of the alert.
In St Vincent, where Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves' cabinet discussed the matter as an urgent priority, islanders living on the coast were advised to prepare themselves for a swift removal to higher ground in a worst-case scenario.
In Barbados, disaster managers hurriedly called a news conference and put people living and working along a swath of the coast running from north to south on alert. Clive Lorde, deputy director of the Central Emergency Relief Organisation (CERO), said volcanoes were highly unpredictable, so people in the danger areas must maintain vigil.
"There is the possibility that earthquake swarms can continue for years or there could be an increase and an explosion," he said.
The disaster management experts said a likely tsunami from Kick 'em Jenny, which is just over 100 miles southwest of Barbados, could travel a mile inland in low-lying areas. In a worst-case scenario, the wave could be 12 feet high but, in a more realistic scene, would be under one-and-a-half feet. The wave could be travelling at 300 to 400 miles per hour, reaching Barbados in 40 minutes, disaster management officials calculated.
Tsunamis were recorded when the volcano erupted on July 24, 1939. According to the Seismic Research Unit, "This eruption generated a series of sea waves or tsunamis which had amplitudes of about two metres in northern Grenada and the southern Grenadines.
"We have discovered very recently that these waves were sufficiently large to wash across the west coast road in Barbados, but were not recognised at the time as tsunami waves."
The 1939 eruption lasted for at least 24 hours and at one stage the volcano had an eruption column 900 feet above sea level. Since 1939 there have been at least ten more eruptions, according to the unit. (The last were in 1988, 1989, 1990.) None of these had been as big as the 1939 eruption and most have been detectable only by seismographs. Multiple earthquake have also been associated with the volcano's burst of activity. Some have been felt in northern Grenada, and other Windward Islands as far north as Martinique. At times, "deep rumblings" have been heard on land in Grenada and the Grenadines and by scuba divers throughout the eastern Caribbean. In 1990, in addition, the sea was "boiling turbulently and throwing up small dark objects", the unit reported.
According to the unit, the volcano appears to erupt in two distinct ways: "Some eruptions, for example 1939, 1990 and [probably] 1988 and 1974 are explosive, whilst others involve relatively quiet emission of lava and the construction of lava domes," the unit explained.
Ironically, pleasure craft operators have been spotted cruising the deadly area this month. "The danger to shipping in the vicinity of the crater remains . . . . ," the unit warned. It said: "People in these craft should be aware that they could be killed at any moment and that they are almost certainly completely uninsured".
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