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National Geographic : 2002 Nov
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THE CARIBBEAN Still Smokin' Living with a hot volcano A fter awakening with a bang n 1995, Montserrat's vol cano has defied hopes that it would quiet down fairly quickly. It continues to erupt and may do so for years to come. More than half the residents of the 39-square-mile British island in the Caribbean have reluc tantly moved away. But 4,500 are sticking it out, and London has allocated more than 200 million dollars in aid. Since the volcano's first blasts ("Montserrat: Under the Vol cano," GEOGRAPHIC, July 1997), holdouts have had to learn about the possible dangers to protect themselves. "When you hear a five-year-old talking about a pyro clastic flow, you know we've all become students," says Carol Osborne, owner of the Vue Pointe Hotel, referring to the clouds of ash, rock, and gas that boil down the sides of the cone with little warning. Young and old recently gathered at a lookout (left) to get a better view of the source: the fiery dome of lava (above) that builds, collapses, and builds again in a now-familiar cycle. With their capital, Plymouth, up to its rooftops in ash as heavy as cement, and with many villages destroyed or off-limits, Montser ratians are re-creating the land scape of their former lives homes, schools, playgrounds, shops, offices, their hospital, the police station-in the safe zone, the once underdeveloped north. "We were in a kind of limbo before," says Osborne, whose hotel is occupied these days by scientists. "But now we're rebuild ing and getting on with our lives." -A. R. Williams NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC * NOVEMBER 2002
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