Pierre with hurricane force. The blast was powerful enough to carry a three-ton statue sixteen meters from its mount. One-meter-thick masonary walls were blown into rubble and support girders were mangled into twisted strands of metal.
The searing heat of the cloud ignited huge bonfires. Thousands of barrels of rum stored in the city's warehouses exploded, sending rivers of the flaming liquid through the streets and into the sea. The cloud continued to advanced over the harbor where it destroyed at least twenty ships anchored offshore. The hurricane force of the blast capsized the steamship Grappler , and its scorching heat set ablaze the American sailing ship Roraima , killing most of her passengers and crew.
The Roraima had the misfortune of arriving only a few hours before the eruption. Those on on board could only watch in horror as the cloud descended on them after annihilating the city of St. Pierre, there were only two known survivors. The remains of St. The dynamic cloud of hot gases and incandescent solid particles that destroyed St. Pierre was a pyroclastic flow , a feature that was unknown to science at the time.
Subsequent examples observed on Mt. Although there were only two survivors in St. Pierre, there were other survivors on the outskirts of the town and in some of the ships moored in the harbor. Mercifully, death came quickly to those that perished. Some may have died by the sheer force of the blast, but most died within a few seconds after inhaling the scorching fumes and ash of the pyroclastic flow.
The throats and lungs of most of the deceased were seared and their bodies badly burned. The tales of the two male survivors of St. Pierre are described briefly here, as well as the astonishing story of a young girl who looked straight into the mouth of a volcanic vent just before Mt. Although he was severely burnt he survived, partly because of his good health, but also because his house was near the edge of the pyroclastic flow.
Here is his experience, in his own words:. I turned to go into the house, with great difficultuy climbed the three or four steps that separated me from my room, and felt my arms and legs burning, also my body.
I dropped upon a table. At this moment four others sought refuge in my room, crying and writhing with pain, although their garmets showed no sign of having been touched by flame. Pierre a the Progressive Party had won but not by a clear enough majority so another vote had to be organised for May On May 2 the volcano rumbled and showered the countryside with ash a glow was seen at the summit.
People came to St. Pierre to escape the worst of the ash. A Martinique newspaper assured residents that there was no real danger and even organised a boat excursion to see the volcano on May 4. On May 3 and 4 people watched the fireworks from the volcano. Food and fresh water were running low but the residents stayed on because of the election and reassurances that all was well!
A mudflow engulfed a sugar mill and killed 23 people. When it entered the sea it caused a Tsunami which inundated the water front area killing 68 people. Soldiers were now brought in to prevent people leaving the city! The local population turned to Voodoo rituals for help. On wednesay the 7th Nuee Ardent clouds flowed down the mountain but injured no one as the villages were by now empty. The Italian ship Orsalina was due to sail on the 8 but here captain sailed a day early leaving his passengers behind.
On the Morning of May 8 at 7. A giant eruption cloud covered the sky for a 50 mile radius. The Governor ,his wife , The American consul ,his wife and the British consul were all killed as were 29 other residents. The city was probably destroyed by a thin and rapidly moving Pyroclastic surge which came out laterally from the volcano. Only a few cms of ash was deposited so it seems the surge was probably only part of the explosion and the part of the eruption Nuee Ardente did not reach the town,as more rocks and a thicker deposit would have been left.
The blast was composed of gas,steam and dust and was probably around C. The city burnt for several days afterwards. Only 2 people survived on land a shoemaker and a prisoner in a small cell - Cyparis. A British ship managed to limp to St. Lucia with a badly burnt crew. Most of the inhabitants were black or mulatto, equally addicted to fashion, the women celebrated for their beauty — Gauguin came here to paint them.
They too eagerly awaited the latest fashion-plates from Paris. In the middle of present-day St-Pierre, now with 5, inhabitants, living off its name as the "Pompeii of the West Indies", indispensible for cruise-ship excursionists, is the Volcanological Museum.
It is full of sad, often half-melted relics: metal and glass vases; mirrors; ornaments; jewellery, and old photographs of elegant promenaders. There was one survivor, from an entirely different social class: August Cyparis, an illiterate labourer of 28, and a heavy drinker. In a brawl just before the eruption, arrested, he was placed in a thick-walled year old cell in the yard of the prison, sheltered by the cliff, its tiny window facing the sea.
The superheated poisonous gas flowed over above him, and, though badly burned, he lived. Pardoned, he was signed up by Barnum and Bailey's Circus, earning a living by showing his burns. The following day, the city of Saint Pierre, which some called the Paris of the Caribbean, was virtually wiped off the map.
On April 2, , new steam vents were spotted on the peak, which overlooked the port city of Saint Pierre. The nearby residents mistakenly believed that the only danger from the volcano was lava flow and that if lava started to flow, they would have plenty of time to flee to safety.
In fact, some people came from outside the city to view the action, even after ash from the eruption began to block roads. On May 7, activity on the volcano increased dramatically and the blasts grew significantly stronger. Overnight, there were several strong tremors and a cloud of gas with a temperature of more than 3, degrees Fahrenheit spilled out of the mountain. Finally, a tremendous blast in the early morning hours sent an avalanche of boiling ash down the side of the mountain.
The city of Saint Pierre was buried within minutes and virtually everyone died instantly.
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