1902 eruption of Mount Pelée

Evacuees on Rue du Pavé, Fort-de-France after 1902 eruption, photographed by William H. Rau

On the morning of May 8, 1902, the night shift telegraph operator was sending the reports of the volcano's activity to the operator at Fort-de-France, claiming no significant new developments; his last transmission at 07:52 was "Allez", handing over the line to the remote operator. In the next second, the telegraph line went dead. A cable repair ship, CS Grappler, had the city in direct view; the upper mountainside ripped open and a dense black cloud shot out horizontally. A second black cloud rolled upwards, forming a gigantic mushroom cloud and darkening the sky in a 50-mile (80 km) radius. The initial speed of both clouds was later calculated to be over 160 kilometres (99 mi) per hour.[6] The horizontal pyroclastic surge hugged the ground and sped down towards the city of Saint-Pierre, appearing black and heavy, glowing hot from within. It consisted of superheated steam and volcanic gases and dust, with temperatures exceeding 1,075 °C (1,967 °F). In under a minute it reached and covered the entire city, instantly igniting everything combustible. Grappler was subsequently lost in the explosion, sunk with all hands.[7]

A rush of wind followed, this time towards the mountain. Then came a half-hour downpour of muddy rain mixed with ashes. For the next several hours, all communication with the city was severed. Nobody knew what was happening, nor who had authority over the island, as the governor was unreachable and his status unknown.

There are unnamed eyewitnesses to the eruption, probably survivors on the boats at the time of the eruption. One eyewitness said "the mountain was blown to pieces - there was no warning," while another said "it was like a giant oil refinery." One said "the town vanished before our eyes." The area devastated by the pyroclastic cloud covered about 21 km² (8 sq mi), with the city of Saint-Pierre taking the brunt of the damage.

At the time of the eruption, Saint-Pierre had a population of about 28,000, which had swollen with refugees from the minor explosions and mud flows first emitted by the volcano. Legend has previously reported that out of the 30,000 in the city, there were only two survivors: Louis-Auguste Cyparis, a felon held in an underground cell in the town's jail for wounding a friend with a cutlass, and Léon Compère-Léandre, a man who lived at the edge of the city. In reality, there were a number of survivors who made their way out of the fringes of the blast zone. Many of these survivors were badly burned, and some died later from their injuries. A number made their way to Le Carbet, just south of St. Pierre behind a ridge that protected that town from the worst of the pyroclastic flow; survivors were rescued on the beach there by Martinique officials.[8]

Remains of St Pierre

Compère-Léandre stated the following when asked about his survival:

I felt a terrible wind blowing, the earth began to tremble, and the sky suddenly became dark. I turned to go into the house, with great difficulty 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 garments showed no sign of having been touched by flame. At the end of 10 minutes one of these, the young Delavaud girl, aged about 10 years, fell dead; the others left. I got up and went to another room, where I found the father Delavaud, still clothed and lying on the bed, dead. He was purple and inflated, but the clothing was intact. Crazed and almost overcome, I threw myself on a bed, inert and awaiting death. My senses returned to me in perhaps an hour, when I beheld the roof burning. With sufficient strength left, my legs bleeding and covered with burns, I ran to Fonds-Saint-Denis, six kilometers from Saint-Pierre.[5]

One woman, a housemaid, also survived the pyroclastic flow but died soon after. She said that the only thing she remembered from the event was sudden heat. She died very shortly after being discovered. A third reported survivor was Havivra Da Ifrile, a 10-year-old girl who had rowed to shelter in a cave. Included among the victims were the passengers and crews of several ships docked at Saint-Pierre.

One passenger steamship, the Roraima, which went missing on 26 April, was believed to have been engulfed by ash from a preliminary explosion. However, it reached the port of Saint-Pierre at 06:30, shortly before the eruption, and was set aflame by the pyroclastic flow. It later sank; its wreck is still present offshore of Saint-Pierre. 28 of her crew, and all the passengers except two (a child and her creole nurse), were killed by the cloud.[5]

At about 12:00 the acting governor of Martinique sent the cruiser Suchet to investigate what had happened and the warship arrived off the burning town at about 12.30. The fierce heat beat back landing parties until nearly 15:00, when the captain came ashore on the Place Bertin, the tree-shaded square with cafés near the center of town. Not a tree was standing; the denuded trunks, scorched and bare, lay prone, torn out by the roots. The ground was littered with dead. Fire and a suffocating stench prevented any deeper exploration of the burning ruins.

Main Street, Le Morne-Rouge, after the August 30 eruption

Meanwhile, a number of survivors had been plucked from the sea by small boats; they were sailors who had been blown into the water by the impact of the blast, and who had clung to wreckage for hours. All were badly burned. In the village of Carbet, shielded from the fiery cloud by a high promontory at the southern end of the city, were more victims, also badly burned; few of these lived longer than a few hours.

The area of devastation covered about eight square miles. Inside this area, the annihilation of life and property was total; outside was a second, clearly defined zone where there were casualties, but the material damage was less, while beyond this lay a strip in which vegetation was scorched but life was spared. Many victims were in casual attitudes, their features calm and reposeful, indicating that the eruption blast had reached them without warning; others were contorted in anguish. The clothing had been torn from nearly all the victims struck down outdoors. Some houses were almost pulverized; it was impossible even for those familiar with the city to identify the foundations of the city landmarks. The city burned for days. Sanitation parties gradually penetrated the ruins, to dispose of the dead by burning; burial was not possible given the number of dead. Thousands of victims lay under a shroud of ashes, heaped in windrows several feet deep, caked by the rains; many of these bodies were not retrieved for weeks, and few were identifiable.

The United States quickly offered help to Martinique's authorities. On 12 May, US president Theodore Roosevelt instructed the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Treasury to start relief measures at once.[9] U.S. cruiser Cincinnati, lying at Santo Domingo, and the Navy tug Potomac at San Juan, Puerto Rico, were ordered to proceed to the disaster area as soon as possible. President Roosevelt asked Congress for an immediate appropriation of $500,000 for emergency assistance to the victims of the calamity. The President said: "One of the greatest calamities in history has befallen our neighboring island of Martinique ... The city of St. Pierre has ceased to exist ... The government of France ... informs us that Fort-de-France and the entire island of Martinique are still threatened. They therefore request that, for the purpose of rescuing the people who are in such deadly peril and threatened with starvation, the government of the United States may send as soon as possible the means of transporting them from the stricken island." The US Congress voted for $200,000 of immediate assistance and set hearings to determine what larger sum might be needed when the full nature of the disaster could be learned. In an appeal for public funds the President empowered postmasters to receive donations for relief of the victims; a national committee of prominent citizens took charge of chartering supply ships.

Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Japan, Russia and the Vatican also offered help.

The volcanic spine of Mount Pelée

On 20 May 1902, a second eruption similar to the first one in both type and force obliterated what was left of Saint-Pierre, killing 2,000 rescuers, engineers, and mariners bringing supplies to the island.[10] During a powerful eruption on August 30, 1902, a pyroclastic flow extended further east than the flows of 8 and 20 May. Although not quite as powerful as the previous two eruptions, the August 30 pyroclastic flow struck Morne Rouge, killing at least 800,[11] Ajoupa-Bouillon [12] (250 fatalities),[11] and parts of Basse-Pointe (25 fatalities) and Morne-Capot, killing 10.[11] A tsunami caused some damage in Carbet.[12] To date, this was the last fatal eruption of Mount Pelée.[11]

Beginning in October 1902, a large volcanic spine grew from the crater floor in the Étang Sec crater, reaching a maximum width of about 100 to 150 m (300 to 500 ft) and a height of about 300 m (1,000 ft). Called the "Needle of Pelée" or "Pelée's Tower", it grew in height by up to 15 m (50 ft) a day, reaching twice the height of the Washington Monument and more or less the same volume as the Great Pyramid of Egypt. It became unstable and collapsed into a pile of rubble in March 1903,[13] after 5 months of growth. The eruption eventually ended on October 5, 1905.[1]

The study of the causes of the disaster marked the beginning of modern volcanology with the definition and the analysis of the deadliest volcanic hazard: pyroclastic flows and surges, also known as nuées ardentes (Fr: burning clouds). Eruptions of a similar type are now known as "Peléan eruptions". Among those who studied Mount Pelée were Angelo Heilprin and Antoine Lacroix. Lacroix was the first to describe the nuée ardente (pyroclastic flow) phenomenon.[14][15]

The destruction caused by the 1902 eruption was quickly publicized by recent modern means of communication. It brought to the attention of the public and governments the hazards and dangers of an active volcano.