FURTHER DETAILS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 111, 12 May 1902, Page 5

FURTHER DETAILS.

DESTRUCTIVE OCEAN WAVE. A SHOWER OF ROCKS. THE SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS. MOUNT PELEE STILL IN ERUPTION. (Received 8.44 a.m.) NEW YORK, May 11.

Survivors from the destroyed British steamer Roraima, who have arrived at Dominica, state that the eruption, which destroyed St. Pierre, seemed to come from a new crater on Mt. Pelee (which is 4429 feet high).

Accompanying the eruption was a destructive ocean wave, believed to have been caused by submarine volcanic agency in the neighbourhood of Martinique.

The great wave rushed into the harbour at St, Pierre and overwhelmed the shipping.

The commander of the French warship Suchet reports that the great explosion which destroyed St. Pierre was preceded by a violent whirlwind. A fall of fiery ejecta from the volcano followed. The whole town of St. Pierre was instantly in flames. Many ships were dismasted by the mass of falling rocks and burnt by the fiery shower. A terrific shower of rocks from the volcano lasted a quarter of an hour. On arrival at St. Pierre at two o'clock on Thursday... afternoon the Suchet's captain tried to penetrate the town, which presented a fearful spectacle. He saw no living creature, but there were numerous corpses on the quays. The cable-steamer Puyer Quertier has brought 450 refugees from St. Pierre to Fort De France, the capital of Martinique. Other steamers are searching for. survivors; Tlie volcano of Mt. Pelee is still in active eruption. Hot mud, ashes,

and cinders continue falling throughout the island, and this fall of volcanic debris has killed and injured many who were not involved in the St. Pierre catastrophe.

The Suchet, which left for Guadeloupe with provisions, re-passed St. Pierre on Saturday. She reports that the fire in the city of St. Pierre con-

tinues,

Negroes are flocking to Fort De France, demanding food, which the military are guarding.

[The eruption appears from the foregoing messages to have been accompanied by phenomena which have been frequently observed on the occasions of previous volcanic outbreaks. The great ocean wave which overwhelmed the shipping at St. Pierre was evidently caused by submarine volcanic or seismic disturbances, which also are responsible for the interruption in the cable, senvice on that portion of the West Indies. Submarine volcanic disturbances, like earthquakes, often cause great ocean waves, usually mis-called "tidal" waves. At the great Lisbon earthquake the influence of the earth-wave was communicated to the sea, which swelled and slightly retired from the beach; then a great wave rolled in upon the shore. At Cadiz this wave rose to a height of 60ft. Some waves of this sort, though not so high as that mentioned, have been experienced on the Pacific. A memorable and destructive one was that which in 1868 originated on the coast of Chili and Peru (where great loss of life was occasioned), and swept across the Pacific, drowning many people on the Paumotus or Low Archipelago (east of Tahiti), and making its influence felt on the Chatham Islands and on the East.Coast of New Zealand. The whirlwind mentioned in the cablegram as having preceded the great explosion of Mt. Pelee has a local parallel in the case of the Tarawera eruption of 1886, when a severe gale or whirlwind struck Wairoa and the Tikitapu Bush, and caused much devastation, uprooting the largest of trees, and added greatly to the horrors of the fatal night in Wairoa.]