Volcanic activity is by far the most radical
of the earth’s natural processes.
With the power of the planet’s molten core
behind it, a single torrent of lava or a devastating
pyroclastic flow can rearrange entire landscapes
in a matter of minutes.
Of course, as nature has no consideration
for humans and our creations, anything that
has the misfortune to be built in its path
will be laid waste, as was the case with the
capital city of the small Caribbean island
of Montserrat.
Plymouth had existed since the Georgian times,
but unbeknownst to its original founders,
they had placed their emerging settlement on the slopes of one of the world's most violent volcanoes.
The island of Montserrat is located in the
Caribbean Sea, and forms part of a long chain
of volcanic isles known as the Leeward Islands.
Situated between Antigua to the north and
Guadeloupe to the south, Montserrat is among
the smaller of the Caribbean islands, being
only 9.9 miles long and 6.8 miles wide.
The existence of the island is owed entirely
to the presence of its resident volcano, the
Soufrière Hills.
Soufrière Hills takes its name from the French
word for Sulphur Outlet (Soufrière), and
is one of several volcanoes in the Caribbean
to share this name; the others being La Soufrière
on Saint Vincent and La Grande Soufrière
on Guadeloupe.
Little is known about the original volcano
and its formation, but the mountain and island
that exist today were the result of a cataclysmic
eruption approximately 4,000 years ago when
the summit of the original peak collapsed.
This massive subsidence formed a landslide
of debris that helped to expand the island,
leaving English’s Crater as the current
peak.
In terms of human habitation, prior to the
island’s discovery by European explorers,
archaeology reveals the island was inhabited
by an Archaic (pre-Arawak) occupation between
2000 and 500 BC.
Later, the Saladoid culture came to live on
the island until around 550 AD, and finally
the native Caribs, who are believed to have
called the island Alliouagana, meaning 'Land
of the Prickly Bush'.
In November 1493, Christopher Columbus
passed the island during his second voyage,
naming it Montserrat in honour of the Santa
Maria de Montserrat Abbey in Catalonia, Spain.
At the time, the island was reportedly uninhabited
due to raids by the Carib people.
It wasn’t until 1632 that Montserrat was
eventually colonised by groups of Irish Catholics
who had been exiled to the Caribbean during
the conquest of Ireland by English Lord Protector
Oliver Cromwell.
The Irish Catholics weren’t the first European
settlers on the island, however, with archaeological
evidence suggesting there were unofficial
European settlements prior to this.
These are largely believed to be pirates or
smugglers who used Montserrat as a base to
hide from the Royal Navy.
Under the control of Sir Thomas Warner, the
first English governor of the nearby island
of Saint Kitts and a major figure in the Caribbean
slave trade, he was responsible for organising
Irish exiles who had been indentured
to the English colonists in both the Leeward
Islands and North America.
Irish slaves on Montserrat were tasked primarily
with working tobacco and indigo plantations,
later joined by cotton and sugar.
In 1666, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War,
the Irish, who had long been allies
of the French in their struggle against the
English, invited French forces to occupy Montserrat,
though no troops were actually sent to claim
it.
While an invasion did commence in early 1667,
during which the French briefly took control
of the island, the Treaty of Breda, a peace
treaty signed on July 31st, 1667 between England
and the United Provinces (Netherlands), France,
and Denmark–Norway to end the Second Anglo-Dutch
War, handed Montserrat back to the English.
As the island continued to develop, the Irish
slaves gradually began to create their own
neo-feudal colony with a small government.
This was followed by the shipment of Sub-Saharan
African slaves en masse to Montserrat during
the peak of the Atlantic slave trade.
Here, the economy of the island was established
through the cultivation of sugar, rum, arrowroot
and sea island cotton.
During Queen Anne's War between 1702 and 1713,
the French, based on the adjacent Guadeloupe,
launched an attack against the newly established
capital of Plymouth, but this was ultimately
unsuccessful.
By the mid-1700s, the island was at its most
prosperous and most populous, with a peak
export of 3,150 tons of sugar being made in
1735 alone, and a population of 10,177 people,
most of whom were slave labourers.
Dozens of plantations were scattered about
Montserrat,
and wealth was rife among the owners.
The same couldn’t be said for the slaves,
who suffered harshly under brutal, inhumane
treatment in order to harvest the crop.
On March 17th, 1768 (St. Patrick’s Day),
a group of slaves and free citizens planned
an uprising against the plantation owners,
but their scheme was ultimately discovered
and they were sentenced to death.
However, their attempt at freedom was not
forgotten, and March 17th, on Montserrat,
remains both a celebration of St. Patrick’s
Day, due to the Irish heritage of the island,
but also of the resilience of the Afro-Montserratians
who planned the uprising,
as well as their descendants.
In 1782, during the American Revolutionary
War, the French, who had aligned themselves
with the American colonists against the English,
once again made a bid to invade Montserrat,
and this time they were successful.
The French occupation of the island, though,
was not strictly enforced, being more a symbolic
invasion rather than a tactical move, and
Montserrat was promptly returned to Great
Britain under the Treaty of Paris
on September 3rd, 1783.
By 1811, slave labour represented 91% of Montserrat’s
population, and the many plantations across
the island were still highly lucrative to
the British landowners.
However, there were underlying rumbles of
emancipation sweeping throughout the colonised
world, the first cracks in the slave trade
emerging in May 1772, following Lord Mansfield's
judgment in the Somersett's Case to emancipate
a slave in England, thus launching the movement
to abolish slavery.
Eventually, rebellions in Jamaica and the
outlawing of the slave trade in 1807 culminated
in the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act
on July 26th, 1833,
coming into force on August 1st, 1834.
Unfortunately, while slavery on Montserrat
was no longer legal, it wasn’t appreciated
by the landowners, who continued to employ
the former labourers under the new title of
‘apprentices’, although the working conditions
were largely the same.
The rule of ‘apprenticeship’ continued
to exist until an 1836 visit by abolitionist
Joseph Sturge IV and Thomas Harvey,
who was touring the Caribbean colonies in
order to make sure the Slavery Abolition Act
was being enforced.
Shocked by what he found, he appealed to the
British government for intervention, and finally,
in 1838, the apprenticeship rule was ended
on August 1st and full emancipation was achieved.
Their joy was short-lived, though,as a massive
8.5 earthquake on February 8th, 1843, the
epicentre of which was under the nearby island
of Guadeloupe, killed 5,000 people and destroyed
much of the infrastructure on the island,
dealing a major blow to the economy.
Things seemed bleak, but the intervention
of the Sturge family, which established a
citrus lime industry on the island, helped
to revitalise Montserrat’s economic woes,
and the Montserrat Company Ltd would thrive
throughout the 1800s and well into the 1900s,
when it was replaced by Sea Island Cotton.
In 1899, nature dealt another vicious blow
against Montserrat when the San Ciriaco hurricane
struck the island in mid-August of that year,
severely damaging the citrus lime industry
and destroying the Sturge family home.
Regardless, the company recovered, and soon
the economy was put back onto an even keel.
Schools were built and the city of Plymouth
expanded into a bustling port.
From 1871 to 1958, Montserrat was administered
as a federal crown colony of the British Leeward
Islands before becoming a province of the
short-lived West Indies Federation between
1958 and 1962.
The first Chief Minister of Montserrat, William
Henry Bramble, led the nation on behalf of
the Montserrat Labour Party from 1960 to 1970,
working to promote labour rights and exploit
the potential tourist market as air travel
brought more European and American tourists
to the Caribbean.
It was under his authority that the island’s
airfield, the somewhat rudimentary Blackburne
Airstrip (opened in 1957) was expanded from
a dirt strip to a fully functioning
airport in 1967, with a paved runway, control
tower and terminal facilities.
It would later be named the W. H. Bramble
Airport in his honour on March 16th,
1997; only three months before it was destroyed.
Bramble made great efforts to endear the island
as much as possible to French and British
tourists, with Air Montserrat established
to ferry passengers from the British Antigua
and Saint Kitts, as well as the French Guadeloupe,
to the island.
Profits from the bustling tourist industry
were used to create paved roads and establish
grand hotels to cater to the European visitors,
including the Vue Point Hotel and
Olveston House.
In 1979, the island caught the eye of Beatles
manager George Martin, who established a recording
studio under his independent record company
Associated Independent Recording (AIR).
The AIR Montserrat Studio quickly
became a major destination for some of the
world’s leading musicians, the peacefulness
of the locale and the beauty of the studio’s
surroundings being both the perfect escape
and inspiration for songwriters.
In May 1979, Jimmy Buffett recorded his ninth
studio album ‘Volcano’ at the AIR Studio,
the name taken from the ever-present Soufrière
Hills volcano that silently dominated the
island landscape.
Volcano would eventually reach #14
on the Billboard Top 200.
Dire Straits recorded their successful Brothers
in Arms album between 1984 and 1985, while
other artists including Elton John, the Police
(who recorded their last two albums Ghost
in the Machine and Synchronicity),
Ultravox, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Paul McCartney,
Marvin Gaye, Rush, the Rolling Stones, Black
Sabbath, Midge Ure, Little River Band, Duran
Duran, Sheena Easton and Luther Vandross.
The presence of the AIR Montserrat Studio
gave the island a celebrity edge in the same
manner as Montreux in Switzerland and Abbey
Road in London, and it wasn’t uncommon for
megastars to be seen walking the streets of
Plymouth and mingling with the locals.
The standard of living was exceptionally high
compared to other Caribbean islands, and Montserrat
seemed set for a prosperous future.
Politically, there had been tensions among
the two factions of Montserrat’s governing
parties, most notably between William Henry
Bramble and his son Percival Austin Bramble.
While W. H. Bramble was highly supportive
of the tourist industry and its ability to
boost the economy, Percival Bramble was critical
of this major influx, as well as the continued
presence of British rule and its influence
over government decisions.
Breaking off from his father’s party, Percival
formed the Progressive Democratic Party, which
swept into power in 1970, making him the Chief
Minister until 1978.
He was followed by Chief Minister
John Osborne of the People's Liberation Movement,
who created a rift between Montserrat and
Great Britain through his flirtation with
independence, although none of his statements
came to pass.
Regardless, much of W. H. Bramble’s work
to expand the tourist industry in Montserrat
was slowed during this period, resulting in
a restriction of the economic snowball he
had created during the 1960s.
In 1989, disaster struck once again in the
form of Hurricane Hugo, which made landfall
on September 17th.
The hurricane, a sustained Category 4, damaged
or destroyed 90% of the structures on Montserrat
leaving between 11,000 and 12,000
people homeless.
Schools, churches, the hospital, the police
department, the government headquarters, and
the main power station were either destroyed
or heavily damaged, disrupting electrical,
water, and telephone service for weeks.
The 180ft stone jetty at Plymouth was inundated
by a storm surge, and rainfall of up to 7in
caused mudslides that destroyed 21 homes.
In all, ten people were killed and 89 were
injured, while over $260 million of damage
was incurred, making it the most expensive
hurricane in the history of Montserrat.
Destruction of infrastructure meant that both
tourism and agriculture couldn’t function,
and the economy faced a huge decline.
Also lost was the AIR Studio, which was heavily
damaged by the hurricane but
could have been repaired,
however, a change in music industry trends,
whereby it was preferable for artists to be
kept at local studios in the United States
and Europe rather than independent studios
in remote parts of the world, meant that there
was no incentive to repair the damage, and
thus the AIR studio never reopene.
One major ecological loss was the Guadeloupe
big-eyed bat population on the island, which
saw a drop of 90% following Hurricane Hugo
and has since been rendered extinct on Montserrat.
Regardless, Montserrat rebuilt, and mutterings
of independence by John Osborne were quickly
quelled when aid was provided by the British;
Osborne was eventually ousted from power in 1991.
Fixing the damage was a long and arduous task,
and the economy of the island was but a shadow
of its former self.
However, there was hope that modified buildings
and structures in the city of Plymouth would
ensure their survival during the next hurricane,
and that there would be no repeat of the devastation
wrought by Hurricane Hugo.
Sadly, the next bout of destruction would
not come from the sky, but from beneath the ground.
Despite its dormancy, Soufrière Hills was
still remembered as a volcano.
The last major activity occurred prior to
its colonisation, when in 1550 AD the Castle
Peak eruption sent between 25 and 65 million
cubic metres of lava down its slopes.
In around 1645, lava emerged within a sector-collapse
scar on the mountain’s flank, forming a
lava dome, but no major eruption on the scale
of the 1550 event took place.
Seismic activity, however, kept geologists
in check, with minor tremors occurring in
swarms between 1897 and 1898, 1933 and 1937,
and 1966 and 1967.
While these quakes signalled the movement
of magma within the mountain, no eruptions
occurred, and for decades people had settled
on the flanks of the volcano; unaware of its
destructive nature.
The first signs of increased activity began
as early as April 1989, when swarms of tremors
once again rocked the island.
Between January 1992 and mid-1994, the volcano
entered another period of seismic activity,
and measurements taken in March 1995 by British
volcanologists noted pronounced magmatic signatures
in the Castle Peak lava dome.
The resumption of earthquake activity, especially
since it followed the pattern of 30 year cycles,
meant that there was very little evidence
that the volcano was expected to enter an
eruptive stage.
Regardless, the seismic activity continued
to be measured, and scans determined that
the epicentre of these quakes was incredibly
shallow (less than 10km below the surface).
Debates as to whether an eruption was to occur
were silenced permanently when, on the afternoon
of July 18th, 1995, a loud roar, reminiscent
of a jet engine, emerged from the mountain,
followed closely by a pronounced sulphur smell
and the first ash fallout from the initial
phreatic eruption.
At the time, 10,500 people were living on
Montserrat, of which the vast majority were
in Plymouth on the southwestern flanks of
the volcano.
On July 28th, a military contingency plan
was drafted that designated areas where the
potential fallout of the eruption would be
unlikely to result in major impacts, and on
August 21st, 6,000 people in Plymouth and
the surrounding southern regions were either
evacuated to the northern half of the island
or ferried to Guadeloupe and Saint Kitts.
It was around this time that the size of phreatic
eruptions increased significantly.
However, as eruptive activity entered a lull,
fears of the volcano’s impact were dispelled
and, after two weeks, people were allowed
to return to Plymouth.
What had replaced the violent phreatic eruptions
was a period of significant growth on the
lava dome; expanding at a rate of 11 cubic
metres of magmatic material per second.
Volcanologists were baffled by the alarmingly
high rate at which the mountain was growing,
with the development of the lava dome accompanied
by dozens of partial collapses per day; this
resulted in pyroclastic flows that tumbled
down its slopes.
Most of these flows, however, were restricted
to the area immediately around the peak, and
thus populous regions were spared for the
time being.
Lava domes hundreds of feet across would build,
collapse into pyroclastic flows, and then
be rebuilt to their previous size within a
few days.
Most unsettling for those living on the island
was the sound, with the high-pressure movement
of magma within the volcano creating loud
groaning noises that could be heard all over
Montserrat.
On December 1st, the southern half of the
island was evacuated again when pyroclastic
flows breached the crater, leading to 6,000
people being moved to the north.
This evacuation lasted for a period of one
month, with residents moving back into Plymouth
in January 1996.
By now, aid agencies across the world, as
well as the British government, provided substantial
amounts of money in order to keep the ailing
island nation financially afloat.
On March 31st, volcanic activity, after a
period of significant lava dome expansion,
increased dramatically.
Pyroclastic flows tumbled down the eastern
flank of the mountain into the Caribbean Sea
destroying crops and killing livestock.
The magmatic rock ejected from the volcano
extended the coast Montserrat by several hundred
square feet during each instance, and new
beaches were formed.
With activity continuing to rise, a state
of emergency was declared, and on April 3rd,
1996, Plymouth and the surrounding regions
were evacuated for the final time; assisted
by helicopters and fast boats from HMS Liverpool.
The task of housing 6,000 of the island’s
9,500 people in what little land was available
for settlement in the north was a logistical
nightmare.
1,366 people were kept in shelters, while
the British government initiated the Voluntary
Evacuation Scheme to allow those evicted by
the volcano to live in the UK for two years.
By August, the population had dwindled to
7,500, and the capital city, Plymouth, was
left a ghost town.
However, despite the boundary being patrolled
by the Royal Montserrat Police Force, people
refused to leave their homes and fields, and
would regularly sneak through into the exclusion
zone to live and work in the land they'd grown
up in.
In September, the situation worsened when
the initial period of lava dome expansion
ended with a gigantic magmatic explosion,
destroying the town of Long Ground.
Fears were exacerbated further by instability
in the wall of English’s Crater (known as
Galway’s Wall), which confined the effects
of the expanding lava dome and the eruption
to the largely unpopulated east and south-eastern
sides of the island.
As the only major barrier between the volcano’s
destructive power and the settlements to the
southwest, including Plymouth, volcanologists
were concerned by the appearance of fractures
on Galway’s Wall during November 1996, with
Plymouth and the surrounding area now directly
threatened by pyroclastic flows and lahars.
By February 1997, the lava dome had broken
through Galway’s Wall, and it was only a
matter of time before a collapse of the dome
would bury the southwest of the island – which
was still being used by groups of farmers.
In May 1997, expansion of the dome shifted
to the north, but the loss of pressure in
the south created instability.
Collapses of the dome to the north sent pyroclastic
clouds tumbling down towards the airport in
early June, and an emergency jetty was created
in the event the airport was destroyed.
On June 25th, 1997, the volcano claimed
its first victims when part of the dome’s
southern flank collapsed, sending a pyroclastic
flow over two miles down the southwest face
of the mountain.
Overtopping the valley into which it was confined,
the cloud engulfed areas of farmland around
Cork Hill, where dozens of people were working
the land.
In its wake, the superheated cloud of ash
and pumice scorched the earth and left 19
people dead.
On July 4th, the first pyroclastic flows reached
the capital, leaving large portions of the
city buried in volcanic debris up to twenty
feet deep.
Uncontrollable fires ravage the streets, and
this once pleasant destination in the Caribbean
was rendered completely beyond recovery.
However, despite the city being completely
destroyed, people would return to Plymouth,
but for dubious reasons.
In February 1998, it was discovered by members
of HMS Liverpool, who were surveying the damage
in the city streets, that the vault in the
main bank had been robbed, presenting the
most significant crime of opportunity throughout
the entire event.
Up on the mountain, the lava dome was blown
to pieces by massive and frequent Vulcanian
explosions; accompanied by fountain-collapse
(gravitational) pyroclastic flows.
Unlike pyroclastic flows caused by the collapse
of the lava dome, fountain-collapse flows
are formed through material ejected thousands
of feet into the air returning to the ground
and tumbling down the flanks of the volcano
at speeds in excess of 400mph.
Vulcanian pyroclastic flows spread further
than those previously created by the collapse
of the lava dome, burying both Plymouth and
the airport.
Vulcanian eruptions continued throughout the
remainder of 1997, with ashfall in the north
of the island resulting in more residents
choosing to move away; reducing the population
to just 3,000 people by 1998.
The last major event on the volcano during
this eruptive period occurred on December
26th, 1997, when Galway’s Wall finally collapsed.
This resulted in massive pyroclastic flows that swept down the southwest flank
of the mountain and through Plymouth.
After this, magma expansion would cease, and,
with the exception of ash venting, eruptive
activity would reduce to almost a halt by
May 1999.
Volcanic activity continued for a number of
years after the devastating eruption of 1995
to 1997, but this was largely restricted to
ash-venting that blanketed the uninhabited
south of the island.
The most significant eruption took place between
November 2009 and February 2010, which resulted
in several pyroclastic flows travelling down
the eastern flanks of the mountain; burying
what remained of the W.H. Bramble Airport.
Aside from authorised personnel, such as members
of the Royal Montserrat Police Force, admittance
into the exclusion zone is strictly prohibited,
therefore everything that was left in 1997
has remained in a slowly deteriorating state.
On occasion, guided tours take people into
the remains of Plymouth, giving visitors a
true illustration of how devastating the effects
of the eruption were on a major city.
While Plymouth remains the de jure capital,
Little Bay in the north is now generally considered
its replacement, with a new port facility
opening in 2014.
Plymouth’s destruction, as well as the loss
of half the island, caused economic decline
that is still felt to this day.
With all the major shops and services located
in the city, a huge gap was left in the infrastructural
capabilities of Montserrat, and it would take
years for new services, such as hospitals,
fire stations, schools and a seat of government,
to be re-established elsewhere.
By the end of 1997, only 1,200 people remained
on Montserrat, with many either settling on
other Caribbean islands or migrating to the
United Kingdom when full residency rights
were granted for those affected by the disaster
in 1998; full British citizenship was granted
in 2002.
However, the island has seen 
a slow resurgence, with
the population, as of 2020, now back to 5,215
people.
The first major step in the recovery process
was the opening of a brand-new airport
in 2005 by the Princess Royal, this facility
being christened the John A. Osborne Airport.
Following the start of volcanic activity in
1995, the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO)
was established in order to monitor, research,
educate and advise both citizens and government
agencies as to the traits and dangers of volcanic
activity.
As Soufrière Hills has since become one of
the most active volcanoes in the world, with
frequent eruptions of varying magnitude continuing
to this day, the MVO is now housed in its
own observatory building in the village of
Flemmings; now providing a unique perspective
on this extremely dangerous mountain.
