A team of geologists at the University of Portsmouth (Great Britain) have just announced that, based on their assessments, a volcano on the northern coast of the island of Dominica is unstable and likely to erupt in the near future. An eruption could produce a tsunami that could endanger 30,000 people on the nearby island of Guadeloupe, a team of U.K. researchers found. One side of the volcano, known as Morne aux Diables, or Devil’s Peak, shows signs of collapse and could send a million tons of rock into the sea, said Richard Teeuw, a member of the team.
Morne Aux Diables (Devil’s Peak) is one of the nine active volcanoes on Dominica, and one of only two in the Northern half of the island. The stratovolcano (which could produce the type of pyroclastic eruptions we associate with Mont Pelée) rises to 2,826 feet/848 meters and is nestled in the mountains near the town of Portsmouth and the villages of Thibaud, Pennville and Clifton. There are no recorded eruptions in historical time but several earthquakes in the region in 1841 and 1893 were associated with either Morne aux Diables or Morne Diablotins to the south. A collapse of the unstable flank could produce waves up to 3 meters (10 feet) high, which would hit the coast of Guadeloupe, 50 kilometers (31 miles) to the north, within “minutes,” Teeuw’s team have concluded. A major earthquake of Magnitude 7 or 8 occurring near Dominica at the end of the hurricane season, when the soil has been loosened could be enough to trigger the landslide, Teeuw said, adding that Dominica itself and the island of Montserrat could also be affected by the resulting waves. “It could happen in 100 years or it could happen next week,” he said.
Teeuw is calling for efforts to prepare the population likely to be affected so that the impact can be reduced. “There’s a low level of awareness in this area of a landslide as a potential cause of a tsunami,” Teeuw said. the danger can be minimized “if you can reduce the vulnerability by making people aware, having local education programs, and having local refuges that are clearly signposted.”
The team carried out geological surveys and used three- dimensional images from Google Earth to draw their conclusions, which were published in the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union. An overland expedition is planned later this year, and a sub-sea survey is planned for 2010, Teeuw said.
Nine of the Caribbean’s sixteen active volcanoes are located on the island of Dominica. By contrast there is one each on Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Montserrat, Saba, St. Eustacius, St. Kitts, and Nevis. There are two in Grenada. Dominica’s nine active volcanoes are Morne au Diable, Morne Trois Pitons, Morne Diablotins, Morne Watts, Morne Anglais, Wotten Waven Caldera, Valley of Desolation, Grande Soufriere Hills and Morne Plat Pays.
For more on this story go to http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aW98jsGUIZWE&refer=latin_america
For more on Morne au Diable go to http://www.thedominican.net/articles/auxdiables.htm
Dominica appears to be a geological time bomb based on the report from geologists.
Any earthquake of a magnitude of 7 or even lower might trigger a cascade of cataclysm resulting in a catastrophe of the fist magnitude in modern history. It will affect also several of islands nearby.
The above article implies that it is not a question of if this cataclysm will happen but when.
Nature tends to be unpredictable.The seismograph and other related technologies currently in use are unable to predict the year,month,day and time of the occurrence of the earthquake.
I agreed With Geologist Teeuw on his recommendation to prepare the population for this impeding disaster. But,it will not help much if the live in the Island during the cataclysm.
We need proactive response now not futile reactive response of search and rescue.
I feels that the United Nations, and the relatively wealthy countries should have a contingency plan to relocate the populations from the more likely to be affected Islands. After all they are members of the human race. Let’s call it :”Operation Noa 2″
By: Pierre F. Lherisson on May 10, 2009
at 11:01 pm