Hazard app now available to residents in SVG

A HIGHWAY OF information about hazards in your area has been established through the new and freely available myHAZ-VCT App.

The application, available for download on both Android and Apple devices, is a collaboration between the University of the West Indies(UWI) Seismic Research Centre(SRC) in Trinidad and Tobago, the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) of St. Vincent and the Grenadines(SVG) and the British Geological Survey (BGS).

Geologist and volcanologist Professor Richard Robertson, speaking on the NBC radio programme “Eyeing La Soufrière” on Friday, September 3, explained, “It really is a mechanism by which we’re getting the citizens, the people out there involved in helping to capture information.”

It is not only intended to document volcanic hazards, but also landslides, storms, earthquakes, tsunamis and other observations.

When speaking about the plans to launch the app a few weeks ago, Robertson explained, “for example you live in an area and you see a Lahar (mudflow) or you see something happening to do with hazards, you could actually take pictures, you could put notes on it and you could send that information in and that information will get to Seismic, it will get to NEMO.”

“It will essentially help us that are monitoring to get information more directly from the public who might be out there being affected by hazards”.

What will happen is that a team will be looking at the posts to review them and validate their authenticity, and then the information will be posted to the Application.

“…You feed information to us, we feed information back to you. So you could actually see the reports that have been put in by other people,” Robertson also revealed.

Persons are invited to find out more about the App from the website https://vct.myhaz.app/. The Application itself, can be downloaded via Google Play and App stores.