They Thought They Were Safe: The Mount Pelée Disaster 1902 | Plainly Difficult Documentary

foreign [Music] it is 2007 and an old film is being restored it is long been thought to have been lost the movie from French Pioneer George milies has eluded movie historians it has long been mislabeled as another film by another early director but the Lost media has seen the projector once again the movie depicts in its own unique style the 20th Century's worst volcanic eruption in which thirty thousand people would be consumed by the disaster in just a matter of minutes the film's name is exact and to the point the eruption of Mount Pele a beautiful island with a deadly inhabitant Martinique is part of the archipelago of the Antilles located in the Caribbean Sea the island is beautiful with its most prominent feature Mount Pele overlooking all who call a land mass home the highest point at 1397 meters or 4 583 feet above sea level and is thought to be roughly 400 000 years old although a source of beauty Mount Palace has also been the source of death on the island erupting several times in its recorded history people have been known to occupy Island since the first century initially by the Arawaks Ben by the Caribs the island was chartered in 1493 by Christopher Columbus from his vessel Europeans on another Columbus voyage wouldn't set foot on the island until 1502. Columbus encountered indigenous peoples who called the island matinio the name was bastardized into Martinique over generations of European encounters settlements now like many other Caribbean islands its history was post-european encounter marked by several cases of different settlers Spanish French British and the accompanying battles and Naval skirmishes that go along with colonization and when the Europeans weren't fighting with one another they fought with the indigenous people but I don't think I can do this part of the Island's history Justice instead I'll focus on our main point for our story the city of Saint Pierre it was founded in 1635 by Pierre bellame a French Trader and adventurer it served as the first permanent French Colony on the island it would become one of the cultural and Financial Centers of the island but also the source of a loss of poor luck in 1780 all of the houses in the city were destroyed by a storm surge which killed roughly 9 000 inhabitants the city was rebuilt and gradually repopulated garnering the name Paris of the Caribbean by the end of the 19th century the City's population was between 25 and 28 000 but the new century would start off with a disaster Mount Pele erupts Mount Pele had been indicating it was due for full-blown eruption since 1792 with the first of two minor eruptions the second of which took place in 1851. it would take roughly 52 years for Mount Pele to truly unleash her power in April 1902 people who had gone close to the top of the mountain noticed sulfurous Vapors emitting from newly formed holes known as funerals no match was full to this as others had appeared and disappeared previously however this time it was bad by the 25th of April 1902 a large Cloud emerged from the top of the mountain throwing rocks out no one and nothing was damaged and as such nothing more was thought of it the next day an explosion near the Mountaintop occurred coating the surrounding area with Ash and again authorities saw little to be concerned about on the 27th a group of hikers climbed pelay to discover a new Lake 150 meters wide or 590 foot wide had been formed the smell of sulfur was unbearable and over the coming days it descended down the mountain to sampier some 6.4 miles away the stench made animals and humans feel sick alike a couple of villages closer to the volcano were increasingly becoming covered in Ash the riviere de Perez and the River roxa Lane began to bulge at their Banks pushing rubble and debris along their Journeys down the mountain Pele was warning it was about to blow a couple of days later on the 2nd of May at 11 30 in the evening Pele emitted sounds of explosions the ground rumbled and the mountain blew out black smoke half the island was scattered with pumice dust and Ash as the second turned into the third a change in wind direction pushed the ash northwards away from the island but on Saturday the 4th Ash would once again fall on stampier some decided to flee the city but others from The Villages around the area sought out sampier for Refuge brief LOL came in the morning of Monday the 5th but by around lunchtime smoke and dust reappeared one of the crater's walls up Mount Palais collapsed causing a Lahar of mud and boiling water to Thunder Down The Blanche River flooding a local sugarworks Sam Pierre received more refugees throughout the day as well as some residents deciding to flee you see it was Ford's that the city would be safe as such officials encouraged the population to stay put even refusing ships permission to depart but it would turn out to be anything but safe the city was plunged Into Darkness as the electrical grid succumbed to the atmospheric changes in the early hours of the 7th of May explosions rang out from Pele a mountain top glowed Orange another low came in the form of the eruption of Sofia song Vincent on the island of Saint Vincent this smaller disaster was hoped would reduce the pressure on Pele at 7 52 on the 8th of May Fort de France was receiving a radio transmission from sampier apparently it was looking good but suddenly the transmission went dead a mushroom cloud over Pele has shot up into the sky a pyroclastic surge shot down the Mountainside sticking to the ground directly at Sam Pierre the cloud was traveling at roughly 100 miles an hour or 160 kilometers an hour hitting temperatures of over 1 000 degrees Centigrade nearly 2 000 degrees Fahrenheit upon reaching the city it's smashed through buildings animals and humans alike anything that could burn did a ship a CS Grappler sunk taking all aboard with her a handful of survivors who are on the fringes of the city managed to make their way out but most would die of severe burns the pyroclastic Cloud had covered an area of roughly 21 kilometers squared sampier was now silent and cut off to the outside world the governor of the island Louis mutet was in the city at the time of a disaster now leaderless a standing Governor ordered a French Cruiser to sail to the city to find out the cause of the silence she was the French Cruiser Sushi and managed to rescue 30 people from damaged vessels which had tried to escape some Pierre the city was ruined and burning and an estimated nearly 30 000 people had perished her cleanup began within a few days systematically Rescuers made their way through the ruins many of the Dead looked calm almost Frozen in Time it just went to show how quickly the city was demolished aftermath on the 12th of May the U.S Congress voted for a two hundred thousand dollar available for an aid for the island more countries also offered a helping hand these included Canada the UK Germany Italy Denmark Japan Russia and the Vatican officially there would be only two survivors from sampierre Louis Auguste cyparis a prisoner held in an underground cell in the town's jail and Leon compierre laundry in reality there were more survivors but these two were pulled from the city's Rebel whereas others had managed to evacuate themselves but Mount Pele wasn't finished with some Pierre thousands of Rescuers by the 20th of May had flooded the stricken City searching for anyone both alive or dead a second eruption emerged from Pele sweeping a pyroclastic flow into some Pierre once again killing around 2 000 rescue workers but that still wasn't the end on the 30th of August another pyroclastic flow struck mon Rouge ajupa Boolean Basset Pont and mourn kappel killing close to 900. it would still not be the end of the eruptions from Pele however which after many lulls and lava flows would finally end on the 5th of October 1905. zampier would never return to its pre-eruption population in the 60s the city had a population of around 6 000 but by the 2010s this have reduced to around 4 000. needless to say the disaster captured the imagination of many across the globe I mean it is one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in modern history and it brings us back to the rediscovery of George miliers long lost technical Marvel of a film newer volcanic eruptions are captured as they happen but we need to appreciate that this film was made in 1905 using in-camera special effects at the time and it is very impressive to watch this is a plain difficult video all videos on the channel are Creative Commons attribution share like license plenty different videos are produced by me John the currently sunny but windy corner of Southern London UK I'd like to thank my patrons and YouTube members for your financial support as well as the rest of you for tuning in every week to listen to me talk about random subjects I've got Instagram and Twitter so check them out if you fancy seeing other things I do and if you're enjoying this outro song please feel free to go over to my second Channel made by John now what's left to say is thank you for watching I miss the music play us out please thank you thank you

Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 521,559

Keywords: plainly difficult disaster, plainly difficult documentary, eruption of mount pelee, st Martinique, volcano disaster, Saint-Pierre, Natural disaster documentary, fascinating horror, qxir, plainly difficult disaster documentary

Id: 72uLtI8zZew

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 06 2023