Today marks a year to the day La Soufrière roared back to life in the mid-morning hours of April 9, 2021—actualising a worst-case scenario painted by vulcanologists, who had cautiously watched the mainland St Vincent volcano’s rumblings for several months. 

Since last November, St Vincent has been on a much-needed pause from the seven-month ordeal, allowing it to recover from the volcano’s explosive phase, which was confirmed to be ‘over’. 

Though millions in infrastructural and agricultural damages were accumulated as a result of the cataclysmic event, miraculously, no lives were directly lost. 

The Caribbean archipelago, while battered, has remained resilient and is committed to rising out of the clouds of dust and ash stronger, more prepared for the future, but ever aware and reverent to La Soufrière’s lingering threat.

Our Today recounts the incredible milestone in geological history:

December 2020

• The towering mountain was slowly revealing its hand when reports of ‘smoke’ rising from the summit of La Soufrière triggered the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Seismic Research Centre to discourage visits to the volcano, home to a popular hiking trail. 

• La Soufrière’s last explosive eruption was in 1979, however, officials at the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) took no chances by declaring an ‘orange alert’ for the country as they were notified of a hotspot in the middle of the stratovolcano’s crater.

January 2021

• By the start of the new year, the hazard map of St Vincent—detailing areas of the island from ‘green’ to ‘red’ danger levels—was revived and neighbouring member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) put themselves on alert in case the situation continued to deteriorate.

February 2021

• As the weeks progressed, and activity increased, a new lava dome at the mouth of La Soufrière steadily grew. The volcano was in an effusive (oozing) phase as the SRC’s scientific excursion team monitored the slowly rising magma.

• La Soufrière’s effusion was unrelenting, and produced a lava dome that eclipsed the 1979 structure in both size and volume. 

March 2021

• The first swarm of volcanic-tectonic earthquakes directly associated with La Soufrière was reported by the SRC team, led by Professor Richard Robertson, on March 23. 

April 2021

• By April 5, warning bells rang faster and louder still, as a new swarm of earthquakes kept St Vincent on edge. 

• Three days later, on April 8, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves declared a Stage Three disaster alert as seismologists observed gases billowing from La Soufrière. 

• Hours later, Gonsalves addressed the nation, ordering a mandatory evacuation of the designated red disaster zone, located to the north of mainland St Vincent. 

• The summit of La Soufrière ominously glowed the night before its fateful, grand re-emergence into the consciousness of Vincentians—and based on all the signals leading up to this moment—Dr Robertson and the SRC team were convinced the volcano was gearing up for something big. 

• Whether the country wanted to be ready or not, the pressures gnawing at La Soufrière finally succeeded on April 9: the release 42 years in the making was here and the once-silent, cloud-kissed mountain blew its top at 8:41 am local time. A ‘red’ alert was immediately put into effect.

• Bearing witness to arguably the biggest seismic event in the region since the tragic 2010 Haiti earthquake, a stunned Caribbean watched as a mushroom cloud of dust and ash towered over the skies of St Vincent. 

• The race was on to evacuate 20,000 people in the direct line of danger, as even Barbados, some 200 kilometres east, was itself plunged into darkness.

• Two days into the eruption, on April 11, widespread reports of power cuts, as well as water supply disruptions, swept St Vincent as ash fall threatened to cripple its network of infrastructure.

• The situation turned more desperate by the minute, as Vincentian officials, irrespective of rationale, announced that police were now empowered to arrest citizens still in the red zone on April 12.

• Another explosion rocked La Soufrière on April 13, the 42nd anniversary of the 1979 eruption, with the volcano consistently venting ash.

• As if a double whammy of La Soufrière eruptions and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic wasn’t enough, St Vincent was again tested with flash flooding as heavy rains drenched the battered island on April 29.

May 2021

• The fury of La Soufrière slowly eased and, by May 6, acting on recommendations from the SRC scientists, the Vincentian government downgraded the volcano’s alert from ‘red’ to ‘orange’ after days of inactivity.

November 2021

• It had been more than seven months since La Soufrière first exploded and its last major eruption was in May. Dr Richard Robertson—returning to the public two months after several periodic volcanic-tectonic tremors and mudflows— said based on the volcano’s current activity, he was confident the eruptive phase has come to an end.

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