JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, March 3, 2025

Rumbling at Piparo mud volcano intensifies

by

Radhica De Silva
1987 days ago
20190923
An aerial view of the Piparo mud volcano, yesterday.

An aerial view of the Piparo mud volcano, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The rum­bling of the Pi­paro mud vol­cano has in­ten­si­fied.

Geo-sci­en­tists say more sub-sur­face ac­tiv­i­ty is tak­ing place, yet the Solomon fam­i­ly who lives clos­est to the vol­cano still has not re­lo­cat­ed.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, res­i­dent An­nal­isa Solomon said they spent the night at home be­cause con­di­tions were not favourable at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

The fa­cil­i­ty has no bath­room and even­tu­al­ly af­ter vis­it­ing the cen­tre, the en­tire fam­i­ly moved back in­to their cracked house.

“We stayed awake all night on Sun­day. There is still some move­ment to the build­ing. Cracks are widen­ing,” she said with wor­ry.

How­ev­er, she said they were now con­tem­plat­ing split­ting up and stay­ing by sev­er­al fam­i­ly and friends.

“My par­ents will go some­where, my broth­er and his wife will go by their in-laws and I will have to go some­where else. It is re­al­ly dis­tress­ing split­ting up but we know we have to move,” she said.

Solomon begged the gov­ern­ment to pro­vide a tem­po­rary HDC home for them so they will not have to split up while they wait for the erup­tion.

Dur­ing the last erup­tion on Feb­ru­ary 22, 1997, the cracks and rum­bles oc­curred for more than a week be­fore the ac­tu­al erup­tion.

Solomon said since Sat­ur­day they have been pray­ing that their prop­er­ty will be saved. Their house has al­ready suf­fer­ing gap­ing cracks.

Mean­while, se­nior geo­sci­en­tist at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Xavier Moo­nan said the area con­tin­ues to show signs of an im­pend­ing erup­tion.

“There is a heav­i­ly-frac­tured area 40 feet north of the cur­rent ac­tive vent which has had a net up­lift of 1.2 feet when com­pared to pre­vi­ous drone topog­ra­phy sur­vey con­duct­ed in Au­gust 2019,” he said.

Moo­nan added: “The dex­tral mo­tion to the right along the frac­tures and deep­er faults are re­sult­ing in lo­calised up­lift and re­lease of trapped high­ly pres­sured gas­es and flu­ids (mud) in the sub­sur­face.

“If there is fur­ther mo­tion along the faults, cou­pled with the area be­com­ing more sat­u­rat­ed with rain­fall, the sub­sur­face pres­sures will in­crease and may breach lead­ing to a pos­si­ble erup­tion.”

He again warned ad­ven­tur­ers and tourists to stay away from the area.

“Be vig­i­lant and do not ven­ture on­to the Pi­paro mud vol­cano un­til au­thor­i­ties deem it safe enough to do so,” he said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent who went to the site said the ground feels as if it is bub­bling un­der­neath.

Oc­ca­sion­al­ly a puff of gas shoots out of the fis­sures which oozes fresh mud. More cracks have ap­peared on the road and sur­faces near the main vent.

De­spite the warn­ings, cu­ri­ous on­look­ers have con­tin­ued to go to the vol­cano site.

Dur­ing the last erup­tion, 31 fam­i­lies were dis­placed and sev­er­al homes were cov­ered in the mud which pitched more than 200 feet in the air.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored