Volcano Threatens to Reclaim Island

BRADES, Montserrat — These could be the last days of Montserrat.

The volcano that long ago created the southern half of this British-ruled Caribbean island is now reclaiming it, crowding inhabitants into the northern tip and leaving the capital and other places under waist-high ash.

An upscale tourist destination of lush landscapes that supported 11,000 residents until the Soufriere Hills volcano became active two years ago, Montserrat can no longer sustain even the 4,000 who have stayed. The tourists have stopped coming to this 33-square-mile island, and Thursday the remaining islanders began registering for voluntary evacuation, expected to begin Saturday.

“The volcano has taken everything: the town [Plymouth], the airport and the hospital,” lamented Julian Bobs, a baggage handler who lost his job and his house to the volcano’s last eruption, which sent a stream of ash within 50 yards of the airport.

The 3,000-foot volcano whose striking views of neighboring islands once drew tourists here now drives them away. Its most recent explosion last week was so violent that the volcano blew its top off. What remains of its peak is hidden by angry, gray smoke.

On quiet days, like Thursday, a fine dust hangs in the air, leaving hair and skin gritty and spreading a suffocating grime over plants. Then, unexpectedly, the volcano will belch ash that scatters tiny pebbles as far as the island’s northern tip.

One resident who sneaked past police to visit his house in the “exclusion zone,” an ever-expanding area considered dangerous, hurriedly turned around when he plunged one leg knee-deep into hot ash, he said. Such incidents have gone a long way toward convincing residents that they must leave.

By afternoon, about 130 people had signed up for evacuation at two schools that are being used as shelters for refugees. Roughly the same number gathered outside the office of Chief Minister Bertrand Osborne, the British colony’s top elected official here, to protest the emergency relief they are being offered. He resigned abruptly and was replaced by a member of the island’s parliament.

Those leaving the island may go to Britain, where they will get free housing, schooling and medical care, or stay in the English-speaking Caribbean, receiving about $5,000 per adult and $1,200 per child to be distributed over six months.

The Montserrat government had asked London for roughly four times that amount, to be distributed over 18 months, Osborne said.

But British Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short said in a radio interview from London that such a disbursement was unlikely. Britain spent tens of millions to develop the rustic northern point before scientists decided the volcano had a larger reach than previously thought. And, she said, Britain must also give money to neighboring islands such as Antigua, Guadeloupe and St. Kitts that have agreed to accept evacuees.

Protest leader Julian Romeo dismissed the British offer as “racist and dangerously negligent.”

The government has been insensitive to Montserrat’s tightly knit society, in which almost everyone’s family has been here for generations and most people are distant cousins, many residents complained. “We need to be taken together [to the same place] to keep our culture and our language if we are coming back,” Romeo said.

But the southern part of the island probably will not be habitable for at least 20 years after the volcano stops erupting, said Steve Sparks, chief scientist at the Montserrat volcano observatory.

The volcano shows no sign that it will stop erupting soon--on the contrary, it appears more active, said Sparks, sitting in a room crowded with computers connected to seismographs and other gauges. The machines record the volcano’s every movement and their data are analyzed along with satellite photographs and helicopter laser surveys to note changes that might give clues to the volcano’s intentions.

“Because of heightened activity, there is an increased danger of an eruption that will involve wider parts of the island,” Sparks warned.

Overlooking the volcano, the observatory is in the town of Salem, at the border of the exclusion zone. Sparks is looking for safer quarters for his 15-person scientific team.

After a major eruption Aug. 4 rained volcanic ash on Salem, government offices that were moved there after Plymouth, the capital, became uninhabitable were moved again, further north to Olveston.

Salem’s Viewpoint Hotel--its view is the volcano--was the last hotel open on this once-thriving tourist spot. Like much of the town, the low-slung, stone and concrete building is now covered with ash. Nearby storefronts are boarded up, and the ocean-view homes just outside Salem are abandoned.

Montserrat resident Gwendolyn Grid has moved many times in the past two years--after spending the first 51 years of her life in the same place. She was born, raised her children and was raising a grandson in Harris, a village on the south side of the island.

When the volcano first began rumbling, she moved into a shelter. When it calmed, she moved back home for a few weeks. Then came an eruption that moved the exclusion zone closer to her. She moved to Salem for a few months and, when it was evacuated, she moved to Brades, into a corner of an elementary school classroom partitioned by blankets hung over clotheslines.

She visited her home periodically until the Aug. 4 explosion. “A friend told me that he was there in a helicopter and my house was on fire,” recalled the tall, thin grandmother. “I cried my eyes out. I lost everything.”

Thursday, she was standing in line to register for evacuation, still not certain she will leave. “You don’t know what a volcano can do,” she said. “You can’t wait until the last minute. . . . But there is no place like home.”

At Rosie’s Cafe, a woman serving an orange drink said with sad resignation, “It looks as if we are going to lose our beautiful little island.”