A FEARFUL CALAMITY by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 21, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 21.

A FEARFUL CALAMITY.

By S.

At a little before eight o'clock on the morning of May 8, there occurred on the island of Martinique, West Indies, what is probably the most terrible holocaust that has ever visited the world. Greater cataclysms have occurred, but we have no record of such a burning alive of human beings as took place there on that morning, when probably not less than 30,000 human beings were burned to death in less than one minute. The city of St. Pierre, with 25,000 inhabitants, nestled at the foot of Mount Pelee, a smoking volcano. There had been rumbling sounds from the mountain for several days, and more smoke and steam issuing from the crater than usual, and there was much apprehension on the part of the inhabitants; but on the morning of May 8 the whole top and side of the mountain was blown out by an indescribable explosion of fire, steam, mud, lava, and red-hot rocks and ashes. A perfect cloud of actual fire swept down with the force of a whirlwind upon St. Pierre and adjacent villages. Every building was on fire in an instant, and the inhabitants were literally roasted where they stood or fell. So quick was the terrible work done that many of the bodies were actually burst open by the sudden great heat. The fiery tempest that destroyed the villages set on fire the shipping in the harbor, and only one vessel out of the eighteen there was able to escape. Many of her crew were burned to death on the deck of the vessel, or jumped into the water to escape the fiery rain, and were drowned. The French cruiser Suchet, which was in the harbor of Fort de France, fifteen miles distant, hurried at once to the vicinity, but could not go close to the shore on account of the great heat and the incandescent ashes that continued to fall. Two days later her crew made a landing, as did the crews of other vessels. Every building was burned, and the streets were deeply covered with lava and ashes, and the bodies of the dead were everywhere. The roads leading out of the city were literally choked with dead bodies. The clothes of all these victims had been burned from them by the fiery rain. Immediately on landing, the soldiers and sailors began the work of burning the bodies that were not wholly consumed.

At the same time that this disaster was taking place, the volcano on the island of St. Vincent, in the same group, belched forth clouds of steam and fire, lava and rocks. Great streams of lava ran down the mountainsides overwhelming the inhabitants. The latest estimates place the loss of life in this island at 500. The streams have been dried up or choked with lava both on this island and on Martinique, and the suffering is terrible among those who escaped from the rain of fire.

Both these volcanoes continue active, and it is feared that fresh eruptions may take place at any time. Those who witnessed the disaster on Martinique describe it as a glimpse of hell or of the destruction of the world. Vessels passing 200 miles at sea tell of having their decks covered with a rain of volcanic ashes. Almost simultaneously with this eruption, slumbering volcanoes in various parts of the world are becoming active. There is believed to be some connection between this catastrophe and that which occurred on April 18 in Guatemala, in which 6,000 persons are reported to have lost their lives. This holocaust on Martinique far surpasses that which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, and will go down in history as one of the most terrible catastrophes that has ever visited this earth.