The authorities of Vanuatu ordered on Thursday the massive and mandatory evacuation of the island of Ambae, which is declared in a state of emergency, because of the eruption of the Monaro volcano, as reported by the media. “The lives of the people of Ambae are our priority,” said the prime minister of this South Pacific island country, Charlot Salwai, ordering the mandatory evacuation to be completed by October 6, according to the Vanuatu Daily Daily in their Twitter account.
The volcano, whose alert was set at category four on a scale of five, is spewing rocks, volcanic gas, acid rain and ash into Ambae, where it is calculated that there are about 8,000 people, according to the Department of Geological Hazards of Vanuatu.
Imagery taken during a New Zealand Defence Force aerial survey showing activity from the Monaro volcano on Vanuatu’s Ambae Island.
Several ships were on alert and it was the decision of the Vanuatu Council of Ministers to evacuate the people of Ambae to the nearby islands of Santo, Pentecost and Malekula, according to Radio New Zealand .
The island of Ambae, declared in emergency, “is not safe”, said the coordinator of the Red Cross of Vanuatu, Dickenson Tevi, in statements quoted by the New Zealand station.
Tevi explained that many locals have fled from the vicinity of the volcano, which rises in the middle of the island, as a result of the eruptions, although never before has there been an evacuation of this magnitude of an entire population from the territory of archipelago, added the source.
The legislator representing Ambae, Jacob Mata, said that an estimated 8,000 residents remain in Ambae, most of them in shelters near the coast waiting to be evacuated.
The evacuation “will probably take three to four days,” said Mata, who said he estimates that between 15 and 20 percent of the inhabitants have left the island, that’s 400 square kilometers, since the eruptions began in the last three weeks.
Vanuatu is an archipelago of 82 islands – mostly uninhabited – that sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity and is a convergent point for tectonic plates.
