There has been a marked increase in activity at the volcano today. There have been several pyroclastic flows down the White River Valley, which have reached less than a kilometre from the sea. The resulting ash blew mainly west over Garibaldi Hill. The timing of these flows followed the existing pulses in hybrid earthquake activity, although the period of these again shortened to about 4 hours. The main pyroclastic flow activity occurred at about 9:30 this morning and at about 1:30 this afternoon. As this report is being written the next pulse in activity is just starting with heightened rockfall activity being recorded on the drums.
Between 16:00 yesterday and 16:00 today there were 25 hybrid earthquakes, 19 long period earthquakes, 1 volcano-tectonic earthquake and 78 rockfall signals.
Cloud has again covered the top of the volcano all day and so there have again been no good views of the crater formed by the Boxing Day collapse. Samples of rock and the deposits of the Boxing day eruption were collected today. Air quality at all monitoring stations across the island is good today.
People should remain alert and listen to Radio Montserrat for further information.