MONTSERRAT: VOLCANO ERUPTION

(3 Aug 1996) Natural Sound
In its most spectacular eruption ever recorded - Montserrat's volcano has sent a river of super hot gas down its sides and clouds of ash thousands of metres into the sky.
The volcano erupted for the first time in centuries in July, 1995.
Since then it has forced more than five thousand people to abandon their homes and devastated the island's tourist-based economy.
The latest eruption of Montserrat's volcano began last Sunday - its most dramatic in recorded history.
Clouds of incandescent gas as hot as five hundred degrees Celsius - known as pyroclastic flow - have been pouring out of the mountain.
Flowing down valleys, the gas reached speeds of up to a hundred kilometres an hour.
This gas travelled all the way to the sea where it made the water boil.
20 cows were burnt to death as the cloud engulfed them.
So far no people have been injured - because thousands of them have been evacuated away from the danger zone to safety on the northern part of the island.
The capital town of Plymouth was emptied of people four months ago and remains quiet today - the streets are covered in a layer of ash.
The former inhabitants don't yet know when they will be allowed to go back home.
The eruption has devastated the island's economy - ruining the tourist trade and closing businesses and public services.
This series of eruptions began over a year ago - the one before that was four hundred years ago.
Prior to that, geologist say the volcano was dormant for twenty thousand years.
The remaining people are hoping the next one will be just as far away - but at the moment it looks as if the volcano has other ideas.

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