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Guanyin
Novembre 2002
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FLASH ANIMATIONS

After several important inflations of the "Massif de La Fournaise", during september 2002, a very calm period get installed in the "Enclos Fouque".Ii is only in the early November that La Fournaise is finally active: The Volcanologic Observatory observes a strong seismic. At 4:33am, during the night of Friday November 15th and Saturday November 16th, 4 breaks open on the East side between 1850 et 1600 meters of height.
The 2 first breaks, situated between Piton Madoré and Parvédi will last a few hours. The other 2 breaks downstream, stay in activity. In the morning, the lava flows already covered 1 kilometer. In spite of a consequent decreasing of the "tremor" during the day, the lava flow is still important. From Saturday afternoon to Sunday night, a lot of spectators came to admire the lava flow progress and could even see the fountains of lava. This Sunday, the lava flows were situated at 1,7 km from the National Road at about 400 m of height. Then, approaching the flatter gradient of Grand Brûlé, the flows will slow down. From the 2 breaks, only the uphill one, has a consequent activity : The crater Guanyin (name of a chinese divinity) is in formation, imprisoning a lava lake with fabulous fountains of over 30 meters of height. Monday, November 18th, the lava flows are at 1,4 km from the National Road RN2. The following days, the flows go slowly because of the low declivity and the successive overflowing . Thusday 21st, A strong tropical storm named Boura (2nd of the season) pass by the island at about 600 kms from the coast, bringing bad weather for several days. We will have to wait till Sunday 24th to get news about the eruption. As usual, Alain Gerente and me are going on the site : the activity didn't slow down, a tunnel of lava was formed from the crater on 1 km. 1300m is the new altitude of the lava exit. Inspite of the declivity approaching 30° sometimes, the « gratons » flows progress slowly. The "tremor" raises on Friday 29th : The crater broke down increasing four times the surface of the lava lake. Friday night, crater is open on its south side inducing a lava flow while magma fountains in fusion high of over 70 meters dance in its center. Still the main activity is situated below, at tunnel exit where 4 arms of lava were born. The flow is impressive and its speed is estaimated at about 50 km/h . Tha lava flows progress is spectacular : at 11:00pm on Saturday 30th, a first flow crosses the road. The second one will cut the road at 1:00 am, at about 300m from the first one and later will join it. At 4:55 am exactly on Sunday December 1st, the lava flow reaches the ocean. What a wonderful show ! It is spectacular and a beautiful light add to the show. While unfortunately the bad weather come again on the massif de La Fournaise, numerous and intense earthquakesare recorded under the peak crater (over 1500 earthquakes recorded on Sunday), indicating a possible collapse of the Dolomieu like in 1986.The maritime activity of the eruption really decreased during the night but a third lava flow crossed the road at 10:00 am and reached the sea at about 7:00pm with a bad weather. The eruption will stop during the night. The following days, the seismic activity will keep its rate under the Dolomieu. The "enclos" is closed for safety.
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