Eruption on Cerro Azul
On May 29th, Cerro Azul, the volcano at the bottom left of Isabela, erupted. It was not a large eruption, but our reporter on the spot, Tui De Roy, reported it as being a long, though not continuous, fissure, from the top of the caldera down the flank to the lava field between it and Sierra Negra, which itself erupted in 2005. The lava was erupting in a spectacular curtain and there was a lot of smoke in the caldera. One of the concerns of eruptions in Galapagos is the fate of the tortoises as they are often caught by the lava or trapped in ‘kapukas’, islands in the lava, so nowadays they send in a helicopter to rescue them if they can. As far as we know there were no significant casualties from this eruption which was quite short-lived.