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Mount Pelée

Mount Pelée was the deadliest volcano eruption of the 20th Century. When the awful news of the eruption of Mount Pelee reached the world the inhabitants of all countries were horror-stricken to think that 30,000 people should be killed in so short a space of time. This was surely sufficient to arrest human attention and sympathy everywhere.

The 1980 cataclysmic eruption of Mount St. Helens in southwestern Washington ushered in a decade marked by more worldwide volcanic disasters and crises than any other in recorded history. Volcanoes killed more people (over 28,500) in the 1980's than during the 78 years following 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee (Martinique). The deadliest volcano of all time was Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, which killed off more than 88,000 people in 1815. Most died as an indirect result of the heavy ashfall, which blanketed the growing crops and polluted the water supplies over a wide region, including several neighboring islands. Still more bizarre is the disaster that occurred when Indonesia's Krakatau, another island in the same volcanic chain, exploded in 1883. The collapse of its caldera into the water raised giant sea waves that drowned 36,000 victims on nearby and distant shores.

Previous to the Martinique disaster Mount Pelee trumpeted, threatened, howled, bellowed and broke in terrible majesty. For three months this bellowing and warning was kept up. For eighty years Mount Pelee had been quiet, but all the same, it was the natural outlet of one of the principal molten rivers. As it had been eighty years since Mount Pelee's last great throe, scientists claimed it was an extinct volcano. For many years a placid lake had occupied the crater, but the vital molten river which Mount Pelee represented had never ceased to work for an hour or a day; down deep in the earth the fire river throbbed and pulsated with power and might.

The government of France sent a school of scientists to stop the exodus from Martinique. Those professional scientists, who were sent, knew less about the situation than did the animals and snakes which inhabited the place and thereby absconded, in haste, from danger. The young men who were sent by the French government were in a terrible condition, for they had no knowledge whatever of the situation, neither had they opportunity to investigate.

The mission upon which they were sent was fraudulent and ignorant. It was not in the interest of science, it was a mercenary scheme to stop the people's exodus from Martinique. This body of vested scientists fulfilled the mission for which they were sent and proclaimed the false doctrine that the danger to Martinique was over. This declaration of safety did not satisfy the inhabitants. Through the people's determination to leave Martinique the governor was forced to stop further exodus through governmental power. The governor, who had previously prepared to leave Martinique, accompanied by his family, also the scientists, were forced to remain, although they were anxious to leave.

On 07 May 1902, Martinique's Mount Pelee begins the deadliest volcanic eruption in the 20th century. On this day, the city of Saint Pierre, which some called the Paris of the Caribbean, was virtually wiped off the map. In 1902, probably the most disastrous nuée ardente in history wiped out almost all of the 28,000 inhabitants of St. Pierre on the island of Martinique after the cloud rolled down the flanks of Mount Pelée.

Lava flows are highly destructive, and can obliterate everything in their path. Since people habitually settles in valleys and low-lying areas, lava flows can pose a threat to buildings, agriculture, and other activities. However, because of the relatively slow movement of lava flows, the threat to human life is extremely low.

A pyroclastic flow is a turbulent mixture of inflated glass (derived directly from molten magma) and rock fragments suspended in gas that moves rapidly (over'60 mph) over the ground surface. The phenomenon is characteristically the product of violent volcanic explosions, especially associated with highly viscous magmas which have pushed up into the volcano and solidified to block the conduit (plug domes). A dense cloud of rock fragments and gas is ejected from the volcano (either laterally, from the side of.the volcano, or vertically hrough the central vent) and behaves much like a heavy liquid.

Pyroclastic flows can be incredibly destructive. One of the best known catastrophes of this century was the result of such a flow. Mount Pelee on the island of Martinique erupted in 1902, destroying the town of St. Pierre in a matter of minutes and killing all but a few of its 30,000 inhabitants. Like lava flows, pyroclastic flows tend to travel down valleys and drainage ways. Populations located in such valleys, especially close to the volcano itself, are particularly susceptible to the flow. Unlike lava flows, however, there is little chance for evacuation once the pyroclastic flow is generated.