[8] «We’ve come from the gates of hell»

Those who witnessed the eruption on 8 May 1902 described a deafening explosion followed by a violent squall, a dark cloud of gas and vapour traversed by rolling sheets of lightning then a deluge of rocks and scalding mud. In a minute, the cloud reached Saint-Pierre, igniting the town and the ships at anchor offshore.

The west side of Mount Pelée was devastated from Le Prêcheur to Petite Anse du Carbet. All buildings in the central zone were destroyed. There was no trace of a living soul. Of the 163 wounded on the periphery or on ships at anchor who were taken to the hospitals only 123 survived. Utter chaos, uncertainty as to population movements preceding the catastrophe and the probable overestimation of the number of inhabitants in the 1901 census made it difficult to assess the number of victims, roughly estimated at 28,000. Although this number now seems exaggerated, it was enormous on the scale of the island.