Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1902 — THE APPALLING DISASTER AT ST. PIERRE. [ARTICLE]

THE APPALLING DISASTER AT ST. PIERRE.

ciwUMAX language Is inadequate to express human Impotence in Jr-jl t * le l ,res ' nce of suc h nn appalling, calamity as that which has visited the fity of St. Pierre tn the Island of Martinique, too -feeble to convoy any measure of human sympathy large enough to ; meet the awful suffering that must have accompanied it. Such a ca- ■ tastrophe almost battles human comprehension. \Vc think we have some conception of the distress and suffering incident to a Johns- '• town flood or a Galveston hurxjjpaue. We try to comprehend the rors of drowning in midocean or of women and children being maimed ‘ —and swept into eternity by a windstor nTi PTrr hern wnit-a- Cltv of 30.(HMi inhabitants covered with molten lava and wiped out of existence ' in the twinkling of an eye. , No visitation in all the wide range of nature’s phenomena could be J so terrible as this. The hapless inhabitants of the town were literally • burled in masses of fire that appeared to fall from the sky In lurid torrents. The rain of lire from the volcano of Mount Pelee swept down • with such terrific suddenness and fury as to give no one an opportunity to escape. As complete as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was the obliteration of St. Piere. Not only was the town of St. I Pierre completely submerged, with molten lava, but as the volcanic ' dust fell over 100 miles from the crater, it is knoyvn that the people of Dominica and St. Vincent suffered heavily. • J It now appears probable that the volcanic eruption lias destroyed from 40,000 to 50,000 lives. The destruction of St. Pierre, with its ap- ! palling loss of human lives, surpasses in awful suddenness and com- ■ pleteness all save the most direful disasters recorded by history. J