Man climbs erupting La Soufriere volcano to take selfies
The things people do in their quest to go viral.
So BUZZ Fam, there’s a video circulating of a man who climbed the La Soufriere volcano in St Vincent and the Grenadines to take selfies.
The volcano has been erupting since April 9 and has forced the evacuation of more than 16,000 people in the Red Zone area.
The man, who is now being labelled as “Lava Man” went up to the summit of the volcano without even wearing a mask. He then pauses to take selfies at the smouldering crater and while describing the scene.
He captures another thrill-seeker climbing the volcano who struggles to make his way up amidst the strong winds that are blowing and the steam that rises from the cauldron.
Believe it or not, some people are calling this man brave. But not Professor Richard Robertson, the lead scientist monitoring the La Soufrière volcano who described them as “dotish”.
“It is absolutely foolish…it is absolutely dotish to do that. People talk about bravery and to me somebody is brave when you are aware of the risks that you put yourself through because of some positive job or they need to contribute to society in a fundamental way and you still take the action to save your family or something like that,” Robertson said.
Hybrid earthquakes
“So you are aware of the risk. You know you could be killed or you know you could be hurt but you still do it. That’s a brave person. A brave person is not somebody who goes up to the mountain, putting themselves and their parties at risk and the people who might have to rescue them,” the volcanologist added.
The volcano continued its pattern of explosions on Sunday. The Seismic Research Centre (SRC) of the University of the West Indies (UWI), reported that the episode of continuous seismic tremor generated by explosive activity at La Soufrière, lasted until about 9.00 pm (local time).
In its latest bulletin, the SRC said that following this, small long-period and hybrid earthquakes started to be recorded again, at a rate similar to before the explosive activity. It said that this rate dropped significantly during the early hours of Monday.
