St Vincent and the Grenadines is all but wiped out. La Soufriere volcano erupted toward the end of last week and sent thousands of people fleeing the island.
Weeks before, the island was warned that the eruption was imminent. The extent of the eruption was undetermined.
When the eruption came the government had already taken steps to remove the people who lived close to the volcano. And with good reason because on Monday, the last eruption was so huge that it killed whatever existed there. Fortunately, there have been no reports of human fatality.
St Vincent is a small island with a population of just over 110,000. Of that number, many are Guyanese—some 4,000– who being the migrating people they are, left to go live on that island. The island population is smaller than the population of Georgetown—perhaps the size of Kitty and Campbellville.
The St Vincent government sent out appeals to neighbouring countries for help with accommodation. Even those islands that are equally small have been approached to help take in people. But for how long can they accommodate the displaced people of St Vincent?
These displaced people have to be fed and housed. Yet not one country declined the approach for help. At last count, about 20,000 people had to be accommodated, some with relatives and friends on the island. Cruise ships that can accommodate as many as 5,000 people have been deployed to the island.
Prime Minister of the island, Ralph Gonsalves, meanwhile, has put out calls for food, equipment and just about anything that people would need in the face of the disaster. Supplies have begun to pour into the island and these have to be stored.
Perhaps they would be redistributed to those locations and countries that are housing the displaced St Vincentians.
When the earthquake hit Haiti way back in 2010 the devastation was unimaginable. Countries raced to provide emergency supplies to the extent that boats and planes transporting those supplies had to be turned back. The ports were full as were the airports.
St Vincent does not have any port as big as those that exist on Haiti. One can imagine the likely pile up unless there is a massive coordination effort.
Some people discussing the situation said that the volcano could not have come at a better time to save Ralph Gonsalves. A few days before the eruption, he announced that his government would have had a hard time providing salaries for public servants.
That in itself would have provided hardships for the residents. Heaven knows what the reaction to the Gonsalves Government would have been.
Gonsalves can be assured of massive support from Guyana. In the wake of the March 2, 2020 elections he came out boldly to advise David Granger to take his licks like a man.
For that, the Irfaan Ali government is extremely grateful. No amount of support would ever be too much on the part of Guyana.
And while Guyana is racing to provide support to the stricken island, Barbados, which has also been carded to provide support, has been affected by the volcano. Slightly more than 110 miles separate the two countries.
According to reports, ash from the volcano began to blanket parts of Barbados. The southern side of the island was reduced to perpetual night. The plume from La Soufriere blotted out the sun. But the ash on the streets and the houses is the most inconveniencing.
Yet that cannot be too bad. The reality has hit home when one realizes that water is now priceless. Almost all the drinking water on the island has been contaminated. So cooking has become something of a luxury.
In Guyana, COVID-19 has kept our children out of school. In St Vincent, while there is COVID, there is now the volcano. That is called a double whammy. The people must be wondering whether the end of the world is nigh because it is not often that disasters of those magnitudes would hit people like that.
That is why people always say that Guyana is a blessed country. There are no hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Yet for all that, countries afflicted by those disasters often rebound to rebuild their economies to levels that surpass Guyana’s.
The harsh reality is that Guyana has politicians whose combined efforts appear to be worse than the earthquakes, the volcanoes, and the hurricanes.
People ask why this is. The answer lies in the fact that there is so much hate among the politicians that they do not have time to think about national development. They just think about destroying each other and whatever comes in between.
