More scientists have arrived in St Vincent and the Grenadines to monitor La Soufrière volcano, which has been explosively erupting since April 9.

The scientific team, which arrived last weekend has hit the ground running. The three man team has done much work since their arrival on Saturday, April 17.

The team is based at the Belmont Observatory, monitoring the exploding volcano. They are being supported by other scientists and personnel at the University of the West Indies (UWI)-Seismic Research Centre (SRC).

Sources say three people seem to be a small number, but geologist and lead scientist, Professor Richard Robertson say they are handling the workload adequately.

Explanation about the small team

Prof Robertson sought to justify the small team explaining that the size is dependent on how they are operating. “They have a good support system from the UWI-SRC and Montserrat Volcano Observatory, where they are based under normal circumstances,” the lead scientist said.

When the eruption happened, the three man team on the ground were a volcano-seismologist, Roderick Stewart; a gas specialist, Dr Thomas Christopher; and a geologist, Professor Robertson.

Robertson was supposed to have left two weeks ago but has stayed on while Stewart had initially been slated to stay for a few weeks but this period has already been extended considerably, while Christopher has been on island since January 13.

Stewart pointed out that the new team members arrived last weekend and are staying in Kingstown and “they’re gonna do some work remotely before they swap out for a few days.”

According to Prof Robertson, “we’re moving, getting into a process where the three of us would be swapped out eventually. We’re slowly bringing in new people…”

He explained further, “Even though they’re familiar because they’re offline and we all communicate, there’s a difference between remotely seeing what’s going on and being here, so there’s a certain amount of transfer of experience that you have to do over time.”

He concluded that this is what will be done over the next weeks noting that communications and building a relationship with those on the ground is also important when doing the handover.

However, Stewart and Robertson said that they would be returning.

According to Stewart, “One of the things that has been upset by the eruption is developing local capacity, so we were working with some local people, doing some training.”

He indicated because, on a long-term basis, the Belmont Observatory has to be staffed.

“Seismic hasn’t got the resources to staff it, the Government of St Vincent has to do the staffing. So we were working with people to start the training but then the eruption happened and that had to be pushed aside because you can’t train and monitor at the same time,” Stewart reported.