Montserrat Volcano | Soufriere Hills Volcano

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Montserrat Volcano | Soufriere Hills

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The Soufriere Hills Volcano on the southern end of the tiny island of Montserrat (in the Caribbean Leeward Islands) lay dormant for hundreds of thousands of years. In 1992 small earthquakes started to be noticed and some minor seismic activity began. Three years later on the 18th July 1995 the Soufriere Hills awoke and started spewing steam and ash into the air.

Soufriere Hills Volcano Montserrat

A month after the first visible activity was noticed, the first major eruption took place in August 1995 which covered the nearby town of Plymouth (the capital of the island) in a thick layer volcanic ash. Plymouth and the whole of the southern part of the island was evacuated by the local authorities.

Erupting Volcano

Soufriere Volcano

In 1997 there was a huge volcanic eruption which killed 19 people, buried most of Plymouth and destroyed the W H Bramble airport in a pyroclastic flow. Casualties would have certainly been much higher; however, more than half of the population had already abandoned the island to live elsewhere.

In 1997 more than sixty percent of the remaining population of the island were evacuated. Many locals never returned. Today the population of Montserrat is just over 5,000 and over half of the total area of Montserrat is covered under the volcano exclusion zone and considered too dangerous to redevelop.

Reconstruction has taking place in the north of the island; well away from the reach of the Volcano.

Seismographs at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory

Since 1997 there has been an exclusion zone covering the buried town of Plymouth and the whole of the south eastern part of Montserrat. The volcano now forms a valuable part of the island's tourist industry with viewing tours from safe vantage points.

The mountain is monitored by the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) in Flemmings; including gas emissions and measuring seismic activity. The photo (below) was taken from the observatory (left image).

Soufriere Hills Volcano

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