The original post is referring to the island of Monserrat, in the
Carribbean Sea. I'm not sure where it is in relation to the large islands
but I do know it is in the Carribean.
The big blash occurred on Wednesday, the same day the progam
Nighline was planning a show entitled "A week in the life of a volcano".
Their correspondent was on the island when the blast occurred. He had video
of the large ash plume but they couldn't get very close to the volcano.
Helicopters are notoriously vulnerable to volcanic ash.
The program also showed some of the large eruptions that occurred
all last week and there was some very amazing video of the numerous
pyroclastic flows (hot gases pushing volcanic ash forward at 100 mph and 900
degrees). Of course, most of the focus was on the human effects of these
volcanos. Over 65% of the island is now unihabitable due to the danger of
these pyroclastic flows. Over 7,000 people have had to be relocated to
England (Monserrat is still a British colony).
However, all during the half hour show, I couldn't help but wonder
what was going on with the birds and other wildlife of the island. There
was a post about the Monserrat Oriole a few days ago but I wonder what other
birds are in trouble there. Because Monserrat is an island, there are
probably a large number of endemic birds.
Interesting, there were no reports about the big blast on any of the
network news, NPR news or CNN Headline News the following day despite the
fact that the ash plume was much larger than any that had been seen on the
island so far. The only report I saw on it was the Nightline report and the
post of Tweeters.

At 11:12 25/9/97 -0700, you wrote:
>At 09:39 AM 9/25/97 -0700, you wrote:
>>I'm not finding any official wire reports or anything in the major
>>newspapers yet, but this just came in. Pray for the Orioles...
>>Well, yes, and the people too! Sheeesh! Who d'ya think I am?!?! ;-)
>>
>Steve,
>
>Where is this?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Peggi
>Ben & Peggi Rodgers
>Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz 122 W, 37 N)
>USA
>woodduck at cruzio.com
>http://www2.cruzio.com/~woodduck/
>
>
>"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
> It sings because it has a song"
>
>
>

Deb Beutler
Department of Zoology
P.O. Box 644236
Washington State Univerisity
Pullman, Whitman Co., WA
dbeutler at wsunix.wsu.edu