The year 1902 was unlucky for the Caribbean and for all of Central America. In January, an earthquake struck Guatemala, claiming 1,000 lives. A few months later, on May 10, the Isalca volcano in El Salvador exploded, completely destroying the coffee plantations in the area. In July, the Masaya volcano in Nicaragua spoke, followed by the Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala.
But the worst natural disaster in the spring of 1902 struck the island of Martinique, the pearl of the Antilles. It had a wonderful climate, warm sea, tropical vegetation. It is not known who first came up with the idea to lay in a cozy bay in the north of Martinique the city of Saint-Pierre - six kilometers from the Mont Pele volcano. The city grew rapidly, only about one and a half kilometers remained to the top of the crater. The prosperous Saint Pierre quickly developed into one of the largest centers on the Caribbean coast.
Residents of St. Pierre and surrounding villages, safely located at the foot of the volcano, did not even know about the danger that threatened them. The memory of the faint eruption of 1851 was almost erased in their memory, since that time the volcano made more noise than damage. The top of the volcano has long become a favorite place for Sunday excursions and walks, and the townspeople did not pay attention to the cloud of smoke that sometimes rose over the top of the mountain.
But in the spring of 1902, the behavior of the Mont Pele volcano, which had been sleeping serenely for fifty years, became somewhat unusual. In mid-April, the top of the mountain suddenly began to smoke strongly. The curious stopped in the streets and watched with interest the thick clouds of smoke rising over the mountain. Then smoke poured out of the crater and ash flew out. Lapilli and volcanic dust began to fall on the city, the smell of sulfur was clearly felt, and tremors began at the same time. Poisoned by poisonous gases, animals grazed on the slopes of the volcano died.
In the following days, the ashfall intensified, the surroundings began to shudder from the tremors, and gaping cracks opened in the ground. Numerous hot springs escaped from the bowels and gushed out. Local newspapers warned of the threat. For example, the newspaper "Des Colonies" described the end of April in St. Pierre: “The rain from the ashes does not stop for a minute. At about half past nine the sun came out timidly. The noise of the stream of carriages on the streets is no longer heard. The wheels are sinking into ash. Gusts of wind sweep ashes from roofs and skylights and blow them into rooms whose windows were unwisely left open by residents.
Two thousand inhabitants, frightened by the warning, hastily left Saint-Pierre. But only two thousand, the rest thirty thousand citizens frivolously remained in the city. The American consul also stayed in the city, and his wife wrote in a letter to her sister: “My husband assures me that there is no immediate danger, and if there is even the slightest hint, we will leave the city. An American schooner is stationed in the port, and she will remain there for at least two weeks. So, if the volcano begins to threaten, we will immediately board the ship and go to sea. This was her last message. After the disaster, rescuers found the charred corpse of the consul in a chair in front of a window overlooking Mont Pele. In the next chair was the exact same corpse of his wife. The bodies of their children have never been found.
But newspapers weren't the only ones warning of impending danger. Those who are called "living seismographs" also behaved alarmingly. In the large sugar factory Usin-Guerin, located in the northern part of the city, an incredibly large number of ants and centipedes appeared. This invasion interfered with work. The horses in the yard bellowed, kicked, reared up as ants and centipedes bit them mercilessly. The grooms doused the horses with buckets of water, trying to wash away the insects. Factory workers beat the centipedes with sugarcane stalks, and in the neighboring villa of the plant owner, maids tried to get rid of them with irons and boiling water.
In the meantime, another calamity arose. The streets and courtyards of many quarters of the city were filled with snakes. They did not give passage to people, stinging horses, chickens, pigs, dogs that got in their way. Fifty people and two hundred animals were killed by snake bites.
Promotional video:
The Mont Pele volcano itself warned in its own way: at times it rumbled, several times higher the water level in the Riviere Blanche River, into which it came from a crater lake. On 5 May, heavy rains caused streams of brown water in all valleys of the southeastern slope of Mont Pele. On the same day, shortly after noon, the sugar factory was buried under a huge avalanche of mud with many huge boulders and trees. Only pipes remained on the surface. However, these warnings were not enough. The volcanological commission agreed unanimously that the eruption would be similar to the one that occurred in 1851 and not cause much damage.
However, on May 6, tens of thousands of cubic meters of incandescent ash fell on St. Pierre and numerous fires began. Panic arose among the townspeople: people distraught with fear were hiding in churches and basements. The next day, May 7, on the neighboring island of St. Vincent, the Soufriere volcano woke up and killed two thousand people. But this tragic incident did not frighten the residents of St. Pierre, but somehow even reassured. They decided that the bowels of the earth had been raided and the danger for their island had passed.
The local authorities were to blame for the fact that the city was not evacuated when it was in clear danger. The authorities did nothing to expedite the evacuation. On the contrary, they asked people to stay, since elections were scheduled for the next Sunday (May 11), so it was impossible to allow at least one voter to leave the city.
The governor of the island also remained to cheer up his fellow citizens.
However, on the night of May 8, the force of the eruptions increased alarmingly, and in the early morning of the next day, three powerful explosions were heard one after another. After that, real hell began. The side of the volcano facing the city swung open like a giant fire door. A huge black scorching cloud escaping from it with a terrible roar at great speed rushed down the slope and covered the city with a fiery whirlwind. The sky darkened as if night had fallen again. Down the slope of the volcano down to the houses, streams of hot lava crawled, burning all living things in their path. Barrels of rum, prepared for shipment to Europe, exploded in the harbor.
Terrified residents rushed to the sea, as to the only place of escape, damming up the embankments and pier. But it was already too late: towering above the rushing crowd, Mont Pele breathed fire. In two minutes, moving at a speed of 160 kilometers per hour, a scorching cloud passed through the city, and all of its thirty thousand inhabitants died. Most of them died because their lungs were burnt. Subsequently, many bloated or shriveled corpses were found: the fluids contained in the human body turned into steam and then evaporated.
There is no information about what happened inside the scorching cloud, although burning and suffocation by hot gases during volcanic eruptions happen quite often. On the basis of such data and its consequences, the process of the death of St. Pierre was reconstructed. The eruption of Mont Pele continued after May 8, but it was no longer so dangerous. The famous scientist Alfred François Lacroix later wrote a book in which he recreated in detail all the circumstances of the eruption of Mont Pele and the death of St. Pierre.
Meter walls of houses were uprooted and destroyed, large trees were uprooted. Almost all ships at the two berths were burned or sunk. The temperature of the cloud could be determined only approximately, but it was so high that the glass melted. Near the crater, the cloud had a temperature of about 1000 ° C, and in the city itself - about 700 ° C. What turned out to be beyond the power of the cloud was completed by fires, which were supported by hectoliters of rum that survived in the warehouses.
Everyone in the city died, including the sailors on the ships in the harbor, except for one single person. It was Augusta Cypress, a local prison inmate who was serving his sentence in a stone cell without windows. Despite the fact that the temperature of the boiling cloud was very high, the stone walls of the prison survived. They did not have time to heat up, defended the prisoner, and he miraculously survived, escaping with only burns. The disaster, which claimed the lives of thirty thousand of his fellow citizens, was a happy turn in his life for him. Four days later, rescuers dug him up, and the governor of the island pardoned the prisoner. August Cypress joined the circus troupe and, as a "prisoner of St. Pierre", traveled with her all over the world, telling his story and showing off his burn scars.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. ON THE. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev