By Catarina Demony and GUILLERMO MARTINEZ
SAO JORGE, Portugal (Reuters) – Patiently waiting for a flight back to the lush green mid-Atlantic volcanic island he calls home, hotel owner Filipe Azevedo cannot hide the fear. Sao Jorge, in Portugal’s Azores, is bracing for what could be a major natural disaster.
The island has been rattled by thousands of small earthquakes in recent days, and there are fears that the more than 2,000 tremors recorded since last Saturday could trigger a volcanic eruption or a powerful quake.
“We are all very anxious,” 42-year-old Azevedo said at the airport gate in Sao Miguel, Azores’ biggest island, a short plane trip away from Sao Jorge. “It is a phenomenon for which we are not prepared … we are all very scared.”
Azevedo is also worried the uncertainty of the situation could hurt his hotel business which is still recovering from the impact of COVID-19.
“It is empty and it will remain empty,” he said of the hotel. “Everyone is cancelling.”
The region’s CIVISA seismo-volcanic surveillance centre raised the volcanic alert to Level 4 on Wednesday, on a scale of 5, meaning there is a “real possibility” the volcano could erupt for the first time since 1808.
With around 8,400 residents, Sao Jorge is one of the least populated of the nine islands that make up the Azores.
The region’s emergency plan has been activated, and all is prepared to evacuate locals if needed, authorities have said.
Dozens of care home residents and those hospitalised in Sao Jorge’s Velas municipality, likely to be the most vulnerable, have been transferred to Calheta, on the opposite side of the island.
Also in Velas, people living on the so-called fajas, small plains at the bottom of cliffs originally created by lava or landslides, have been told to leave.
Many locals have left the island on their own terms. Local government figures showed around 1,250 left Sao Jorge by air or sea in the last two days.
Brazilian Kelly Fonseca was one of them.
“I’m scared to death, not just for myself but for everyone who lives there (in Sao Jorge),” said 41-year-old Fonseca, a restaurant worker who moved to the Azores in search of a better life. “It’s hard.”
Some locals seem less worried.
“I will only leave my house as a last resort,” said Luis Mendonça, 52, at the local pharmacy in Velas, which remains open. “It’s not like they will touch a button and the bomb will go off. It will evolve slowly.”
(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Pedro Nunes and Guillermo Martinez in Sao Jorge; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
