Fire Mountain: How one man survived the world’s worst volcanic disaster by Peter Morgan, Bloomsbury, £14.99, ISBN 0747556768 Reviewed by Tony Jones
SHORTLY before 8 o’clock on the morning of 8 May 1902, the bustling Caribbean town of Saint-Pierre ceased to exist. Martinque’s most fashionable resort – the Pearl of the Antilles, Petit Paris – was engulfed by an eruption from the nearby Mont Pelée, a volcano confidently believed to be extinct. The warning signs had been there for months, if not years, but went unread. In a few short minutes something terrible raged through the town, burning and demolishing buildings and incinerating ships in the…
