4 Office of the Premier P.O. Box 292, Government Headquarters, Brades, Montserrat Tel: (664) 491 3378/3463/2066/2557, Fax: (664) 491 6780/4632 Email: op@gov.ms Opening Remarks by the Honourable Premier of Montserrat commemorating the 30ᵗʰ Anniversary of the Soufrière Hills Volcano T The Honourable Reuben T Meade, Premier of Montserrat hirty years ago today, the mountain we now call simply The Volcano first made itself known in a plume of steam that curled into the July sky. In the months that followed, Soufrière Hills reminded us, sometimes gently, sometimes with terrifying force, that Montserrat is, and always has been, part of a living earth. The mountain’s ash reshaped our skyline; its pyroclastic flows erased streets we knew by heart; and on a dark day in June 1997, it took the lives of friends, neighbours, and loved ones whose memories we carry still. Yet as we gather on this solemn anniversary, we do so not in despair, but in gratitude and hope. For if the past three decades have proven anything, it is that the spirit of Montserrat cannot be buried in ash. We are a people who stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, African, Irish, Kalinago, and who draw strength from every trial we have faced, from colonization to hurricanes, to this restless mountain we now monitor day and night. Resilience is not a slogan for us. It is a way of life. So how do we honour this loss, but still celebrate life? Let us first pause to honour those we lost. Their absence is felt in every empty chair at family gatherings, every hush that falls when the old sights of Plymouth appear in photographs. To the families who carry that pain, I say: your grief is a sacred trust for our entire nation. We will keep telling their stories. We will keep their names stitched into the fabric of our island’s history. But memory alone is not enough. We also celebrate the lives that persisted: the farmers who coaxed crops from scorched earth, the nurses who set up clinics in borrowed halls, the teachers who themselves were evacuated, but still held classes under mango trees so that no child would lose a single day of learning. We celebrate the Christians who knelt in alabaster ash and thanked God for breath in their lungs, the scientists from around the world, and the volunteers, in particular the Royal Montserrat Defence Force and Police Officers who answered our call in our hour of need. Each of them is a verse in the anthem of Montserratian resilience. • Continues on next page
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