El Hierro Volcano (Canary Islands) : Red alert – eruption bubbles visible from the island
Last update: October 16, 2011 at 2:12 pm by By Armand Vervaeck and James Daniell
This is Part 3 of the El Hierro Volcano eruption report
Update 16/10 – 12:39 UTC : The giant gas bubbles occur at a frequency of approx. every 15 minutes
Update 16/10 – 11:19 UTC : Giant bubbles visible from the coast! (see also update from 10:44 UTC)
Eruption bubbles at El Hierro – picture courtesy and copyright laprovincia.es
Update 16/10 – 10:44 UTC : Villagers are mentioning “bubbles” coming up in the spotted area in the sea. We expect to receive fastly images from the bubbles as the many camera teams with their superior equipment will certainly be able to shoot detailed video from an event which can be seen by the naked eye.
Ramon Ortiz, a technician from the CSIC (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) is predicting that a new island is being formed at this moment and that the chance that it will happen now is evaluated as very probable, at least of the eruption process will continue a little longer.
Update 16/10 – 09:50 UTC : The volcano’s activity can in part be evaluated in looking at the “live” seismogram published by the official Spanish geographic agency IGN. We hope that scientist will be commenting later today on what has happened around midnight (see seismogram below). We also hope that we will get more detailed video and pictures from the supposed new fissure area later today.
Update 16/10 – 09:40 UTC : PEVOLCA, the team of scientists and local authorities is meeting at El Pinar at 13:00 (1:00 PM) local time this afternoon.
A few words of merit : At earthquake-report.com we have the feeling that we are residing at El Hierro. Joke Volta’s multiple emails and SMS’s are like a webcam for us. Joke talks not only with a lot of people in the village, but also with people from the press, with the mayor and even the president of the Canary Islands. In the name of our thousand’s of readers we thank Joke for her relentless energy to feed us with news.
– As earthquake and volcano followers in almost every corner of the world, we know from many experiences that local people are often kept away from the news and that politicians, mayors etc can only be seen on TV.
El Hierro is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT story. Even when they get loads of irritating comments from villagers of La Frontera for not opening the tunnel, local and province politicians and authorities are still AMID the islanders and are open to a talk with everyone. At earthquake-report.com we are experiencing this as a unique and much to be respected service to the people who elected them. The information bulletins from the local authorities to the islanders are very detailed and has even more information than can be read in the press. Also this service is of great value to the population.
Update 16/10 – 08:39 UTC : Joke Volta reports from El Hierro
– everything is calm this morning and even the journalists seems to have stayed ion bed longer today
– everybody is still “excited” about yesterday’s experience. The images of hot pumice arriving at the surface waters is the 100% proof that the earlier coloring is really an eruption. Also the non-believers became believers at the end.
– have just had a conversation with Jesus Perez, Chief security as they call him locally. He told me informally that nobody knows the next phase of the eruption, but that everybody from the safety team is prepared that the eruption will gradually come close to sea level and that steam explosions cannot be excluded.
– Yesterday afternoon, “the green spot”or so called ”mancha verde”, was seen fom the village of el pinar.
– At 5 pm yesterday (17:00), the complete council of El Pinar was gathered in a special meeting, to proclame to the population of this small mountain-village the start of the red tape proceeding in askingeconomical help to european, and national organizations, for supporting this crisis situation.
to read more, and for updates, go to: http://earthquake-report.com/2011/09/25/el-hierro-canary-islands-spain-volcanic-risk-alert-increased-to-yellow/