Montserrat: The Modern Pompeii

June 1995 is a month that those living on the idyllic Caribbean island of Montserrat will remember for the rest of their days. The island's volcano, on the Soufrière Hills had been dormant for many hundreds of years. Yet in that fateful month it erupted - and it hasn't stopped since.

Much of the island was devastated. A further eruption followed in 1997. In a short time the island's capital, Plymouth, founded in Georgian times, had been buried by almost 40 feet of mud and other debris. Much of the airport and the dock were destroyed and the entire southern part of the island, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, was rendered uninhabitable.