Authorities respond to renewed Piparo activity

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Gov­ern­ment teams have be­gun emer­gency re­sponse ef­forts af­ter re­newed ac­tiv­i­ty at the Pi­paro vol­cano caused road dam­age and tem­porar­i­ly cut off some com­mu­ni­ties.

Min­is­ter Jear­lene John said of­fi­cials were mov­ing quick­ly to as­sess con­di­tions, with Min­istry of Works of­fi­cers al­ready en route. “I don’t have a lat­est. I know the Min­istry of Works of­fi­cers are busi­ly on their way there. I’ll get a re­port short­ly, but of course that will be a top pri­or­i­ty con­cern. We’ll have to treat with it,” she said.

John said she plans to vis­it the area as soon as pos­si­ble. “If I can go up to­day, I’ll go up to­day with the team. If not, we’ll be on the ground there to­mor­row for sure,” she said.

An evac­u­a­tion plan from the pre­vi­ous erup­tion re­mains in place, but ac­cess to parts of the area has be­come dif­fi­cult. “That place plus some west­ern road has been cut off. So they have some im­mo­bil­i­ty right now. So the thing is be­com­ing a lit­tle bit se­ri­ous, quite se­ri­ous,” John said.

She said the gov­ern­ment is await­ing an of­fi­cial re­port be­fore giv­ing fur­ther de­tails. “I don’t want to com­ment too much un­til I’ve seen an of­fi­cial re­port,” she said, adding that the Min­istry of Health will al­so as­sess how ac­cess to the area can be re­stored.

As res­i­dents pre­pare for the Christ­mas pe­ri­od, John sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic that state re­sources are al­ready mo­bilised. “Our prime min­is­ter said, ‘I have no fear, come, let’s see.’ I just heard, and our peo­ple are up there,” she said.