La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelee, the Worst Volcanic Disaster of the 20th Century
When nature kills on a grand scale, it does so indiscriminately: a murderer may be spared and an orphanage destroyed. So it was with the May 8, 1902, eruption of Mount Pelee on the Caribbean island of Martinique, author Alwyn Scarth shows inLa Catastrophe, his study of the event. The explosion, more specifically, its aftermath--a 300 mph burst of superheated gas as well as roiling mudflows and tsunamis--killed more than 28,000 people, sank a dozen seaborne ships, and reduced the city of Saint-Pierre to rubble. Scarth, after briefly delineating the island's geology and history, methodically describes the increasingly fraught days before the event and, with gruesome precision, the event itself. Most welcome are his many sidebars, including firsthand accounts by survivors, newspaper stories, and lists of widespread rumors (and their dispelling). As well, the book is amply and instructively illustrated. The prose is powerful and understated, and the book somberly thrilling and perceptive. Nor does it avoid ghastly ironies. A few months after the eruption, Scarth observes, "the ruins of Saint-Pierre suffered the supreme indignity of becoming an attraction for boatloads of tourists."--H. O'Billovich