Key Facts

• The volcano is active and has been erupting since 1995, with its last eruption in 2013. 

• The volcano has produced both dome-forming and explosive eruptions. The 1997 eruption was particularly devastating, killing 19 people and burying the capital city of Plymouth.  

• The volcano's eruptions have made more than half of Montserrat uninhabitable. The island has been plagued by sporadic ash falls and lava flows since 1995. 

•  The Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) monitors the volcano's activity. 

•  The city of Plymouth, St. George's Hill, the volcano, and the entire south of the island are in the Exclusion Zone. 

•  Some people have moved back to the island and started to rebuild, but only in the safer northern part. However, renewed eruptions have discouraged resettlement. 

•  Montserrat has relied heavily on British and EU aid. In 2022, work started on a new town and port at Little Bay on the northwest coast of the island. 

•  While there has been no significant surface activity since 2010, monitoring data indicates that the volcano's magmatic system is still active. This means that future lava extrusion is still a possibility

Did You Know That.......

Cultural Roots of CARICOM: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas , Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.