St. Vincent and the Grenadines is in the process of implementing a Volcano Ready Community Project.
The UWI, Seismic Research Centre has recently accessed financing from the Caribbean Development Bank- CDB under the Community Disaster Risk Reduction Fund towards the project.
According to a release from the Agency for Public Information, St. Vincent and the Grenadines is among the most disaster-prone territories in the world, and is affected on a regular basis by the negative impacts of natural hazards such as volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, landslide, rainfall events, storm surge and drought.
The Volcano Ready Community Project will seek to prepare and equip 12 vulnerable communities in northern to effectively respond to an eruption of the La Soufriere Volcano in a manner that will minimize the number of associated fatalities and injuries.
The Project will seek to provide the scientific information, resources and necessary downscaling to support individual and community level volcano contingency planning, community-led multi-hazard mapping and capacity building for disaster risk reduction.
It will also seek to fully utilize and leverage recent research outputs and products from the recently completed STREVA project that has provided invaluable insights into community needs, and the recently updated National Volcanic Emergency Plan -NVEP.
