On May 8 1902 on the Caribbean island of Martinique the volcano Mount Pelee loosed the most terrifying and lethal eruption of the twentieth century. In minutes it killed 27000 people and leveled the city of Saint-Pierre. In La Catastrophe Alwyn Scarth provides a gripping day-by-day and hour-by-hour account of this devastating eruption based primarily on chilling eyewitness accounts.