Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1902 — CITY'S AWFUL DOOM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CITY'S AWFUL DOOM

Destruction of St. Pierre the Calamity of a Century. MOUNT PELEE’S WORK Sone Horrifying Details of the Ter* rible Volcanic Eruption. That Indescribable Cyclone of Fire on Martinique the Moat Stupendous Disaster of Modern Tinies—lsland Devastated and a City Wiped Ont in the Twinkling of an Eye—Human Beings Die at the Rate of a Thousand a Second. Alone, unrivalled, tinapproached among the disasters which have visited the western hemisphere stands the cataclysm of steam and fire which turned the beautiful city of St. Pierre, on the island of Martinique, into a crematory and a grave. In a twinkling the busy, prosperous. sun-kissed city of the flowering tropics became a scene of indescribable horror, of most awful destruction, of

most terrible death. Frotn outthe crater •f the Mount Pelee volcano, in the waters of which picnic parties used to bathe and up to the very verge of which trailing vines and flowers scattered their sweetness and perfume, the breath of Death came. It touched the trees and they withered and shriveled to their roots. It touched the smiling plantations and they became black, ashy, lifeless. It touched the modern mansion, of elegance and luxury and beauty and it, like the Jowly grass-thatched hut; became the plaything of destruction. It bent above the city and the proud works of man

were shattered like fragile glass. It spread out upon the waters and they boiled in fury and tossed their waves in menacing convulsions. It mingled with the atmosphere and it became poison. Hot, sulphurous, flame-lit, the air b< veame death ladim and man’s every breath an added pestilence until vitality ceased. And such a cessation of vitality! Thirty thousand human lives crushed out with that :.i! breath—a whole e*ty turned in tn tt crematory—a miracle •f nature’s destruction wrought! To-day St. Pierre is btack and desolate and lifeless, save where the searchers are at work dragging burn-d. bloated, corrupting bodies from their ashy covering and burning them in fujieral’ pyres.The buildings of the city arc practically all destroyed. The very streets are obliterated. Cinders and ashes und mud. •till hot and smoking, lie layer upon layer over all which a short time before was bright and beautiful and full of life. Off in the distance, the burning mountain. still belching forth smoke and flame and ashes, stands like , a satanie monster, as though proud of its execution and uncertain whether to bury the eager searchers in' the city under another avalanche of destruction. On'its side • few tree trunks, bent and shattered •nd black, throw their ghostly outlines tato view. Over all the scene rests n heavy pqll of sulphurous smoke —one pilfer of darkness ascending from the volcano, another from the cjy. where the volcano's victims are the fuel. Such is St. Pierre to-day. The fate of historic Pompeii has been its. and like Pompeii and Herculaneum and Krttkatoa tt aba 11 live in tragic history as the vie- — - -fljm trf vnr of the gmrtrrt and tnnst-fle-•tructive disasters in the whole annals •f mankind. A CYCLONE OF FIRE. In Boiling Mud and Steam. Ht. Pierre Went Down to Ita Fate. Mount Pelee, which visited such a terrific fate upon St. Pierre, began showing signs of activity toward the end of April. For fifty years the volcano had feis inactive, and was regarded by the people aa extinct. When, therefore, it began emitting clouds of smoke and •bowers of ashee, it created consteraaMoq among the people. But as day sue-

ceeded day without any violent eruption, even the timid took heart and hundreds of sightseers, with the joyousness of picnickers, made the four-wile journey to its summit. Early in May the volcanic activity became greater. Heavier clouds 6f smoke and greater volumes of ashes were emitted and rumblings within the interior of the mountain became sharper and more frequent. The air became stifling from the sulphur permeating it, and the citizens of St. Pierre were obliged to wear wet handkerchiefs over their faces to protect them from the fumes. Horses dropped dead in the streets from breathing the vitiated air. All the time a rain of fine ashes was falling. The action of the Governor of Mar-

tinique led to tl subsidence of the panicky feeling. He appointed a commission to investigate the eruption and sent soldiers from Fort de France, the capital, to prevent people from abandoning St. I’ierre.

The commission reported that there was nothing in the eruption of May 5 which portended danger to St. Pierre. The report was made public May 7 —the day before the great cataclysm —and while it could not dissipate all alarm over the situation, it greatly lessened it. '1 he people went to bed on the night of May 7. hopeful, but not over-confident. Thursday morning the people looked with fearful, anxious gaze toward the flaming mountain, whose mighty convulsions were shaking the foundations of the city. Explosion after explosion followed in the incandescent bowels of the earth and out of its mouth the volcano belched torrents of fiery ashes, sulphurous and stifling. During the early morning the sky was aflame with lurid flashes of fire from the mountain. Down in the harbor the crews and some of the passengers on the vessels which were there riding at anchor were watching the fascinating display of energy, when at 7:50 the whole top of the mountain was hurled into the air with a terrific noise and a cyclone of steam, boiling mud and fire descended on the city and the roadstead. The land heaved and swelled and a terrible convulsion seized the sea. The waters rose in a huge threatening mass as though they would engulf the island. Then darkness grew dense and the pitiful scene was hidden from view. Of the eighteen vessels in the harbor at the time all except one perished. The upheaval of the waters dashed some of the vessels on their sides and they sank. The crews jumped into the water and there most of them perished. It was im-

possible to escape from the pitiless rain pf fire and boiling mud and only thirty,' all of them injured and some fatally, were rescued by the French steamer. Sachet, which entered the harbor soon after the explosion. The first rescue parties to reach St. Pierre arrived there on Sunday. They found desolation and ruin and death. On the wharves, on the streets, in the houses, the churches, the marts, death was everywhere. Even in the waters of the harbor bodies were floating, with sharks glutted with their feast on human flesh, swimming playfully around. Everywhere there were ashes and mud and volcanic stones and —bodies. The latter were scattered singly and in heaps. Most of them were lying face downward. Nearly all were nude and burned. Death had come by asphyxiation, and nearly all the victims had their handsj covering their mouths or were in some other attitude showing they had sought relief from suffocation. In one place the bodies of twenty-two men, women and children were found in one awful mass, arms and legs protruding as the hapless beings fell in the last struggle of death’s agony. On the site of the cathedral the roasted bodies of 3,000 human beings were found. When earthly aid was wanting they had turned to the church to implore assistance from heaven. But heaven was deaf in that hour of supreme agony, and they perished while they prayed. Throughout the city the searchers found no living thing, nor a single house that escaped the fury of the volcanic convulsion. And; to escape pestilence, the bodies of the dead are being cremated day and night. To facilitate combustion and to destroy as far as possible the sickening odor of human flesh, the funeral pyres are kept constantly soaked in coal tar and petroleum. The number of people who perished outside of St. Pierre is still conjectural. The town of I.e I’rechcur, only a short distance from St. Pierre, escaped destruction, and its 5,000 people, making their way to the seacoast, were taken off in vessels and conveyed to Fort de France. Over a large area the eruption worked destruction. Rivers overflowed their banks and spread over the surrounding country. Hollows were elevated and hills depressed, and the configuration of the country was changed. In making repairs to the cable near St. Pierre, the French cable ship Pouyer Quertier found it sunk in 1,200 meters of water, whereas. formerly, it was only 300 meters below the surface—a difference of nearly 3,(W0 feet. *—

TOUCHED THE WORLD’S HEART. Relief Pours in for the Martinique and St. Vincent Sufferers. The heart of the world has/been touched by the great tragedy on the island of Martinique and by the great, though lessor, disaster in St. Vincent, and already relief agencies under many flags are in action. Congress appropriated $500.060, to be applied under the direction of the Navy and Treasury Departments to the succor of the homeless refugees and relief ships and war vessels under the flag of the United States were -soon on their way to the sadly stricken island of Martinique. Tuesday afternoon the cruiser Dixie left the Brooklyn navy yard, loaded down with stores, and the same day another vessel left Porto Rico with supplies for the islanders. Other United States vessels were hurriedly started to Martinique. In addition to the appropriation made by Congress, upon the recommendation of the President, Mr. Roosevelt rappointed a committee, extending throughout the United States, to receive voluntary sums for the afflicted in St. Vincent and Martinique. From all over the world relief has poured in. The King of Italy contribut-

ed $5,000: the Kaiser 10,000 marks; King Edward $5,000 and King Oscar of Sweden SI,OOO. The government of Holland sent a vessel from the Dutch West Indies to Martinique to assist the sufferers. In New York. Chicago and other cities appeals have been made /or aid. New York's Chamber of Commerce sent $5,000 to the sufferers and subscriptions are being raised in all the leading cities.

River Mouseim, which flows through the capital of Martinique, closed with . lava and ashes from St, Pierre’s Volcano'-'

LA SOUFRIERE, ST. VINCENT VOLCANO.

SCENE IN FORT-DE-FRANCE.

ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT.

THE FORT, ST. PIERRE.