…but number of quakes per day ‘falling off’
The abnormal seismic activity registered on the Azores island of São Jorge continues to this day.
Since the start of the seismic-volcanic crisis on March 19, 25,000 quakes have been logged on the island – 255 of them felt by local populations.
In the last few days, geologists were at one point fearing the ‘total destruction’ of Velas – the town closest to the abnormal activity – but since then quakes have levelled off to roughly 800 per day, and they are remaining 10-13 kms underground, José Madeira of FCUL (the Lisbon Faculty of Sciences) has told Sol online.
The island continues at level 4 of the volcanic alert scale (level 1 being ‘state of rest’ and level 6 being ‘eruption underway) – more than 2,500 people have been evacuated from Velas, and authorities have a wider evacuation plan ‘ready to implement’.
In other words, the situation in terms of risk is still far from over.
