Give a detailed account of. • the first minutes of the eruption

• the first minutes of the eruption

• what happened to the vessel

• what happened to the people on board

• the situation in the city

Vn

Through the glowing cloud, called nuee ardente, which descended from Pelee onto Saint-Pierre was composed of hot gases and incan­descent particles, within the cloud itself there was little or no free oxy-

gen necessary to promote combustion. While thus enveloped, Saint-Pierre scorched rather than burned. It was only after the cloud had passed and a supply of oxygen returned, a matter of less than a minute, that the city took fire. It was then that the incandescent particles set the "superheated town" to burning.

But within that matter of seconds, when the nuee ardente was on Saint-Pierre, the heat was so intense that many objects were complete­ly carbonized (turned to charcoal without combustion). Some wood­en beams, four inches thick, were almost instantly charred by the in­tense heat. Books with charcoal pages were recovered after the disas­ter. Foodstuffs and green fruits were preserved in a sort of petrified state. Melted and distorted glass was also found. Relics such as these are kept in the Volcano Museum at Saint-Pierre, even to the present day.

Miraculously, there were two survivors within the city. Leon Comp-ere-Leandre, a Negro shoemaker, was one of them, and this is the story he told:

On May 8^th, about eight o'clock in the morning, I was seated on the doorstep of my house, which was in the southeast part of the city. All of a sudden I felt a terrible wind blowing, the earth began to tremble, and the sky suddenly became dark. I turned to go into the house, made with great difficulty the 3 or 4 steps that separated me from my room, and felt my arms and legs burning, also my body. I dropped upon a table. At this moment four others sought refuge in my room, crying and writhing in pain, although their garments showed no sign of having been touched by the flames. At the end of ten seconds one of these, the young Delavaud girl, aged 10, fell dead; the others left. I then got up and went into another room, where I found the father Delavaud, still clothed and lying on the bed, dead. He was purple and inflated, but the clothing was intact. I went out

and found in the court two corpses interlocked; they were the bodies of the two young men who had been with me in the room. Re-enter­ing the house, I came upon the bodies of two men who had been in the garden when I returned to my house at the beginning of the catas­trophe. Crazed and almost overcome, I threw myself upon a bed, inert and awaiting death. My senses returned to me in perhaps an hour, when I beheld the roof burning... With sufficient strength left, my legs bleeding and covered with burns, I ran to Fonds-Saint-De-nis, 6 kilometers from Saint-Pierre. With the exception of the per­sons of whom I have already spoken, I heard no human cries; I experienced no degree of suffocation, and it was only the air that was lacking to me. But it was burning. There were neither ashes nor mud. The entire city was aflame (7).

It is apparent that Compere's home was located in the fringe area affected by the glowing cloud. But why he should live when others were dying all around him is one of the unsolved mysteries of the catastrophe. However, in this respect, the contrasts of violence in the cloud within very limited areas were amazing. In the heart of the city iron bars were found twisted like pretzels, yet short distances away fragile china teacups were left unmoved and unbroken.

Many groupings of people were found, some of whom had been unclothed by the intensity of the blast, while others in the same group were found with clothes intact and hardly disturbed. Alongside the charred body of a man was found a box of matches, the contents of which had not been ignored (this can possibly be explained by the lack of oxygen).

Death came principally in three ways:from the effects of the hurri-canlike blast of the cloud, resulting in the collapse of buildings, and so on; from scorching and asphyxiation by the extremely hot and poison­ous gases; and from fires after the cloud had passed.

■ Suggest how the following could be expressed in Russian:

within the cloud itself; oxygen necessary to promote combustion; while thus enveloped; Saint-Pierre scorched rather than burned; a matter of less than a minute; the city took fire; it was then that...; within that matter of seconds; turned to charcoal; were instantly charred; books...were recovered after the disaster; in a sort of petrified state; relics such as these; miraculously; their garments showed no sign of having been touched by the flames; the clothing was intact; re-entering the house; crazed and almost overcome; my senses returned to me; experience no degree of suffocation; the air was lacking; it is apparent; located in the fringe area; the unsolved mysteries; in this respect; twisted like pretzels; short distance away; cups were left unmoved and unbroken; alongside the body; result­ing in the collapse of buildings