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Spanish Canary Island prepares for possible volcanic eruption
Sep 26, 2011, 13:24 GMT
Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain - Minor earthquakes have been reported on El Hierro, indicating a slim chance that a volcano could erupt on the Spanish Canary Island, an expert said Monday.
About 8,000 tremors have been registered on El Hierro since July 19, said Maria Jose Blanco, director of the National Geographic Institute on the Canaries.
More than 30 quakes occurred Monday.
Most of the tremors so far have been too weak to be noticed by residents. The strongest, which registered at a magnitude of 3.4, was felt all over the island on Saturday.
The seismic movements indicated that magmatic material was pressing towards the Earth's surface, Blanco said.
El Hierro has a large volcano and about 250 craters, according to figures quoted by the daily El Pais.
There was only about a 10-per-cent likelihood that the seismic movements would lead to a volcanic eruption, Blanco said.
Even in that case, the eruption was expected to occur so slowly that it would leave the authorities time to evacuate residents, El Pais quoted El Hierro security official Maria del Carmen Morales as saying.
The authorities are informing the island's 10,000 residents about the possibility of an eruption and on what to do if that happened.
El Hierro has not seen a volcanic eruption since 1793.
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