Martinique Steps Up Vigilance Over Activity At Mt Pelée Volcano

Experts in neighbouring Martinique are stepping up their vigilance as a result of activity at Mount Pelée Volcano and have raised the level of alert, local reports say.

Martinique 1ere  on Friday quoted Fabrice Fontaine, the Director of the Volcano and Seismology Observatory in the French overseas territory, as saying that the experts  had urged a switch to a yellow level alert.

He said it meant stepping up vigilance a including aerial reconnaissance.

Yellow is the third level of vigilance on a scale that has 5.

The next step is the pre-alert, in orange then the alert in red.

However the Prefect  of Martinique, Stanislas Cazelles, says the yellow alert is no precursor of signs of an eruption.

“This reminds us that Pelée is a living volcano. We are going to strengthen its surveillance. This yellow alert is not an alert for the population but for scientists”, he explained.

“We detected a reactivation of Mount Pelee. This is normal. On the other hand, we have absolutely no precursor sign of an eruption but it could occur on the scale of a few years or perhaps less, ” Marc Chaussidon, director of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, was quoted by RCI.FM as saying.

Last September  51 volcano tectonic type tremors had been recorded on Mount Pelée and the number has been increasing since November last year, local reports say.  (St Lucia Times)