This video was made possible by Brilliant. Learn with Brilliant for 20% off by being
one of the first 200 to sign up at Brilliant.org/HAI. Welcome to Plymouth, the capital of the island
nation of Montserrat—a British overseas territory. I mean wow—just look at the city teem with
life—a beautiful, seaside UK city. Wait a minute… Tesco, Wetherspoons, Adidas tracksuits…
this is the wrong Plymouth, UK. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Here’s Plymouth, the capital of the island
nation of Montserrat—a British overseas territory. I mean wow—just look at it teem with li..ooh. Um…where is everybody? What happened to the buildings? Why does the city look like the location of
a Scooby Doo mystery? Alright, well, it’s rewind time. So, the island of Montserrat—a tropical
Caribbean paradise with beautiful beaches, majestic vistas, a gigantic active volcano,
and a capital city that has absolutely zero people living in it. And if you’re wondering if those last two
are related—congratulations. You’ve won the, “Best Noticer Of Obvious
Foreshadowing,” award. You can redeem your award at the end. Montserrat is located here, in the Leeward
Island chain of the Lesser Antilles, West Indies. Once again, it’s an overseas territory of
the UK—one of the fourteen remaining territories left over from what was once the British Empire. Now, the British Empire was a bit like sand—course
and rough and irritating and it got everywhere. The British have, of course, taken a 180 now
as they’re trying, instead of being on every continent, to be on none. But back on track, Plymouth, the capital of
Montserrat, is located here, and at its peak it was home to the island’s only port of
entry and was the nation’s largest city which, to be fair, meant only 4,000 people,
which is fewer than the number of people that follow me on Instagram—not to brag or anything. Now, remember the giant, looming volcano? Like I said before, Plymouth is here, and
the Soufriere Hills Volcano is here. Now, volcanoes and cities go together like
ice cream and tuna—incredibly poorly. The volcano had been dormant for over one
hundred years, until 1995, when it underwent what’s known as a phreatic explosion. Basically, magma underneath the volcano heated
up ground water, but because the magma is so hot, it turns the water into steam instantly. That instant transition from water to steam
created an explosion, and in the case of the Soufriere Hills Volcano, it caused tons of
ash and rock to be shot out of the volcano. In simpler terms, the volcano started spitting
ash all over the town of Plymouth and that meant that everybody living there left—because
if there’s one thing that’ll dampen a town’s nightlife more than old people armed
with the non-emergency number, it’s being blanketed in a thick sheet of volcanic ash. But after the evacuation, Plymouth bounced
back! A few months later, residents returned to
the city, they started to rebuild, Plymouth would rise aga…aaaaaaaand it’s gone. See when the volcano stopped the phreatic
explosions, it was actually in the process of forming what’s called a lava dome which
is like the thunder dome except for in every imaginable way. A lava dome is exactly what it sounds like—a
giant dome of lava that’s made by the lava slowly coming out and then cooling into a
dome, but then in 1997, the lava dome collapsed, causing more eruptions and what’s known
as a pyroclastic flow which is when hot gas and volcanic matter starts rushing down the
volcano at about 100 kilometers or 60 muricameters per hour… so like…very fast. Sonic level fa…ahhh! Terrifying. There, that’s better. Now, if you were wondering what’s even worse
for a city’s nightlife than being covered in ash, it’s that town being destroyed by
a flood of gas and volcanic ash. About 80% of Plymouth was destroyed and at
that point, the people of Plymouth decided they had had enough and left for good, along
with most of the island, causing Montserrat’s population to drop from 12,000 to only about
1,200, with most going to the United Kingdom. The entire southern half of the island has
now been sectioned off as an “exclusion zone,” that people are not allowed to go
into and in that exclusion zone is the nation’s capital, Plymouth, which is why nobody lives
in the nation’s capital. But the island of Montserrat would not be
kept down. They have slowly rebuilt, and now boast a
population of about 5,200 people. The de facto capital is now the city of Brades,
a town of about 1,000 people, located here, outside the exclusion zone. Brades was originally just an interim spot
for the government in 1998 after the volcano, but because nobody’s ever moved back to
Plymouth, all government business has happened in Brades for the last 20 years. They’ve even rebuilt all the government
buildings there but Plymouth remains the legal capital of Montserrat, mostly because nobody’s
ever really gotten around to changing it—making the only ghost town anywhere in the world
to be a nation’s capital. Now, of course you’re probably waiting for
your prize for winning the, “Best Noticer of Obvious Foreshadowing,” award! You get the gift of learning. That’s because you can get started learning
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premium subscription.
Sounds like a thinly veiled swipe towards Brexit. lol