Montserrat - volcano in paradise

A large lorry drove past behind me as I sat in the undergrowth jotting details of the frog I'd seen. A part of my brain slowly registered that something was not right. "Hang on, there are no roads around here". I turned around to see a wall of volcanic ash a mile away heading down the valley towards me. It looked a text book example of a pyroclastic flow/nuee ardente/hot ash avalanche, take your pick. Typically travelling at speeds of 100 km/h, and with temperatures exceeding 1,000oC I knew that I was going to be dead very quickly. I recalled the 30,000 who died on Martinique in 1902 when Mt Pelee similarly erupted. Half a minute passed and the billowing cloud of ash didn't get any closer. The summit of the volcano was obscured by low cloud and I realised what must have happened: the volcano had erupted, sending a column of ash upwards which had then collapsed. What I had seen was the descending ash escaping down the valleys radiating from the flanks of the volcano; aided by gravity rather than driven by a lateral blast.

Either way it was the first major eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano since it had broken its 360 year silence a month before. I was part of a team assessing the biodiversity of Montserrat, the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean, but my degree was in geology and I knew enough to realise that this eruption was significant. I broke off halfway through my 4 hour transect and headed back to the nearest road head, convinced an evacuation would be called. I listened in to the local radio station at the first village I came to. Nothing. The rest of the team joined me from surveying their transects in today's 1 km2 field area. They were clearly disappointed that I had abandoned my work, spoiling the dataset. Was I overreacting I wondered? We drove back to the villa, and at four that afternoon I was vindicated: the Governor came on air and declared the first evacuation of this still volcanically troubled isle.

Like many overseas projects and expeditions, preparations for this trip had started over a year before - there was no way anyone could have anticipated the headline that greeted us in July 1995 as we landed at Antigua for the short hop to Montserrat. "Montserrat volcano threatens to erupt". The rest of the team were biologists and were suitably distraught at this news. I too put on a grave face but my volcano loving heart speeded up with excitement. This really was going to be an interesting project!

Montserratians are a wonderful people; friendly, laid back, generous. And we were in an unspoilt tropical paradise, "the Caribbean as it used to be", in deference to its lack of development. We set to, slogging through the bush day and night, catching and recording bats, amphibians and reptiles. In the first few weeks we would catch the occasional smell of sulphur, or a small quake would crack the plaster of our bedroom walls. One pitch dark night on the flanks of the Soufriere Hills a sound like several stationary jet engines marked the venting of gas from the volcano.

As the situation worsened our sense of purpose was eroded; as we drove out to our field areas each day, passing people who had lost their homes and livelihoods, our work seemed a decadent irrelevance. Some days, as tension built, we cried off altogether.

Juan, a freelance Spanish photographer who was recording our work, found himself in the middle of an even more exciting story. He managed to sweet talk the police at one of the roadblocks to let him through so he could climb the volcano and get some shots. He was now looking for an accomplice. Knowing I was a geologist with an interest in volcanoes he figured I wouldn't need much persuading. I disappointed him. Like many volcanoes it was being unpredictable and I figured there was a chance it could erupt while we were on the summit. If it did, we could be killed. Juan went alone the next day, and of course all was well and he got some great shots. A few days later we went to a press briefing given by some of the Royal Marines. They showed video footage they had taken as they slogged up to place monitoring equipment on the summit. Suddenly as the camera panned around the crater the soundtrack was overwhelmed with noise, the screen went blank and all that could be heard were loud thuds and muffled oaths. After 2 or 3 minutes the camera emerged from under the body of a foetal Marine, its owner shouted that the volcano had just erupted and the scene on the screen changed to a mad dash down the slopes. Rocks the size of bowling balls had showered down around them - they had a lucky escape from serious injury.

That first evacuation, including the capital Plymouth, caused a lot of disruption. The volcano threatened the densely populated southern half of the island. All its infrastructure, including emergency shelters, schools, quays and the hospital built after Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989, were abandoned. Displaced Montserratians moved in with friends or relatives in the sparsely populated north, or crowded into churches or the tents put up on a cricket pitch by the Royal Marines. The international team of volcanologists flown in to monitor the situation created the Montserrat Volcanoes Observatory in the Vue Point Hotel.

Seven years on and the latest scientific assessment predicts the volcano will remain active for several years yet. The Exclusion Zone now covers more than half the island, and if the dome continues to grow other areas will be at high risk. The north is developing a substitute infrastructure and Montserratians, who are deeply attached to their island, have taken pride in rebuilding their lives.

Global volcanic activity has more than doubled since 1860. Volcanoes are an intrinsic, if incompletely understood, part of the Earth's natural systems. As populations grow and are forced to impinge on ever more marginal lands, we can expect to see more suffer as a result of natural hazards. The UK threw material, financial and moral support behind Montserrat - other parts of the world may not be so lucky.