When Mount Pelee suddenly erupted on the Caribbean island of Martinique on May 8, 1902, a huge cloud of steam and volcanic dust killed 30,000 people, leaving a solitary prisoner in an underground dungeon as the only survivor. So when the long-dormant La Soufriere volcano on nearby Guadeloupe, a French territory, recently began rumbling and belching ash and gases, authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of more than 72,000 residents from towns and villages in the vicinity of the 4,812-ft. volcano. TIME Correspondent Bernard Diederich flew to the island and ventured up to the...
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