Hunting for wasps and chickens – Into the exclusion zone

The sirens could be used if the level of gases got too concentrated or if ash clouds were imminent.  They were controlled from the Montserrat Volcano Observatory just inside the danger zone.  We could head down to the observatory and take a look at the beast that was keeping Montserrat cowed.  Matt could not drive so it was left to me to drive our pickup truck along the main road south to the last couple of villages still habitable.  The last one was Salem; an ironic name where, even in that short drive the smell of sulphur had strengthened.  We drove up to the observatory but it was shut; however from the view point nearby I got my first close up of the exclusion zone.

Shrouded in cloud, about two kilometres to the south east, a huge wall of grey mountainside loomed over us.  While the flank facing the observatory was vegetated, the north and south faces were bare.  Huge ashpiles scarred with rain washed ravines cascaded down the slopes.  And yet at first sight it looked like the lower slopes were inhabited.  There were field boundaries and houses, trees and roads.  Only by looking through our binoculars could I discern these were deserted villages, the houses dilapidated and with vegetation growing through them.  Of course there was no sign of human activity but this imprint of a past land on the landscape, although devoid of humans now, gave the scene much more humanity.  It made me understand a little of the wrench it must have been for people to have to up sticks from residences which had been home to them for generations and have to start a new life on an unfamiliar, and at least perceived as a less favourable part of the island.  Less favourable, that is, until the big muscly neighbour called Soufriere started to throw its weight around.

Through a gap between two hills to the south of us I spotted more abandoned dwellings, but rather than gently merging back into the natural landscape, I could see they had been ripped apart by the force of the mudslides and ash clouds.  Roofs were off, some walls crumbled down, windows blown out.  But most of all so many of the buildings were only half visible; their bases submerged in the mud.

The deserted Plymouth

I was looking down on the former capital of Plymouth, now a ghost town.  It had been described as the most perfect setting for a capital city in the world – elegant wide streets sloping down to the calm leeward side of the Caribbean Sea.  Now it was abandoned, but still there as a sorry reminder of the terrible tragedies of 1997.  On such a small island, you can never be far away from it.  Matt and I had purposefully not asked any of our Montserratian colleagues to join us on this trip; if we had talked to them about it they may have driven us through the exclusion zone but this form of disaster tourism was distasteful to us.  Matt had told me that Lloydie in particular had been forced to abandon his home, his land, many of his belongings in the evacuation.  We decided that a respectful viewing of the exclusion zone from here was sufficient.  It did bring home to me just how much that Montserrat had lost in that trauma.  Despite it only being a small population, on a percentage scale the community had been blown apart by the eruptions and it was testament to the resolve and strength of character of this island people just how much they were moving on and rebuilding their lives on the other side of the island.