Scientists monitoring the Soufriere Hills Volcano today (Friday) inspected the Galways Wall. It continues to disintegrate and is very unstable. A major collapse of the wall could occur at any time and this could expose hot gas rich magma from the lower sections of the dome and trigger a lateral blast. This would cause major damage to St Patricks and surrounding areas and immediate death to anyone in the area. Todays observations show that there has been another landslide since yesterday and that there are now three main fractures on the wall.
Other activity was low today but the October 1st dome continues to grow and is still giving off rockfalls. Altogether there were 11 recorded rockfalls today but only one volcano-tectonic earthquake.
Visibility was pretty good today and visual observations of the dome were possible, there seems to be several areas of steam venting.
Some EDM measurements were attempted but could not be completed because of poor visibility, low cloud, steaming and ash cloud.
The alert remains at ORANGE which means that there should be no one living in Zones A,B,C,and D. In addition Zones A and B are "no go" areas as they are extremely dangerous and should not be visited under any circumstances.
The revised risk map has been published in today's newspaper and should be studied carefully by all.
Government Information Service