Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Al­though the rum­blings and gas spurts from the Pi­paro mud vol­cano are slow­ly sub­sid­ing, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness (ODPM) is main­tain­ing a safe­ty alert.Over the past few days hun­dreds of peo­ple have been flock­ing to the area to look at the vol­cano which has been dor­mant for 14 years since a huge erup­tion on Feb­ru­ary 22, 1997.

Boyie Seer­att, who lives about 300 feet from the site, said:"We had over a 1,000 peo­ple com­ing here over the week­end. Many of them come with their fam­i­lies to see the vol­cano."I could have made some good mon­ey be­cause they were ask­ing for lunch and phoulourie."

Seer­att said of­fi­cials from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Seis­mic Re­search Unit, fire pre­ven­tion of­fi­cers and a team from the ODPM vis­it­ed it on Sun­day.He said fol­low­ing loud erup­tions and height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, the vol­cano has be­come qui­et.

"We are re­lieved be­cause the last time it erupt­ed, we had to run for our lives," Seer­att re­called.He said he and his fam­i­ly were on stand­by in case of an erup­tion."We al­ready packed a bag with all the im­por­tant doc­u­ments. If we feel the place shak­ing, we will grab the bag and run," he said.Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the ODPM, Dr Stephen Ram­roop, said his team was con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor it.

"The vol­cano is very silent and it is not talk­ing to us at all. We are con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor it."We haven't called off the alert. The ex­perts have said we should watch it un­til the end of to­mor­row to see if it set­tles down," Ram­roop said.He said it was seep­age of sur­face wa­ter in­to the heat­ed ar­eas, not seis­mic ac­tiv­i­ty, that trig­gered the gas spurts and rum­blings.