UNDER THE VOLCANO

By TAMMERLIN DRUMMOND/MONTSERRAT

Several times a week, a nerve-shattering siren reverberates across the island of Montserrat. It is an urgent warning for people to drop whatever they are doing and head north. But there is not much farther north to go, and the terror among local residents is palpable. The Caribbean island's volcano, belching, smoking, fuming for two years now, is giving hints of a cataclysmic blow, as the dark, telltale cloud of white-hot debris shoots high into the sky. "It's the first thing you see when you wake up and the last thing you see when you go to bed," says Audrey White, 51, a farmer who was forced to evacuate her home two years ago and has been living in one of the island's makeshift shelters ever since. "It tears at your soul."

What happens when the siren sounds too late is evidenced by six mounds of freshly tilled soil adorned by simple wreaths. The graves contain the charred remains of local residents who perished on June 25, when the Soufriere Hills volcano spewed 150-m.p.h. molten rivers of lava, gas and ash down its flanks onto the villages below. As farmers tended to their carrot and cabbage fields, huge rocks showered on them and the scorching lava raced over the scalded ground. Ash-filled smoke plunged the land into darkness. There was nowhere to run. Nineteen people died, buried under tons of volcanic slag.

After slumbering for four centuries, Montserrat's volcano awakened two years ago with a vengeance, gradually rendering all but a third of the 39-sq.-mi. British colony uninhabitable. Two-thirds of the population of 12,000 have fled, and thousands more have abandoned their homes, often with little but the clothes on their back, for overcrowded shelters in the comparatively safe northern region. Plymouth, the capital, has been reduced to rubble. The airport is closed, and the only access to the island is by ferry or helicopter.

As the ravenous mountain claims more and more territory, shrinking the boundaries of the safe zone, the once booming tourist destination moves closer to extinction. Towering menacingly above the island, Soufriere Hills erupts periodically, without warning. During explosions, even people in the safe zones wear gas masks and hard hats.

Under the growing pressure of subterranean steam against the mountain's molten core, the volcano's cap could eventually blow out entirely. Montserrat, not much more than a slender arc of farm and beach land surrounding the volcano, could virtually disappear. More likely, the mountain may keep on belching for months or years, slowly smothering the little island. Already it is a paradise lost for its citizens as fewer than 4,000 cling to their homeland. "If everyone leaves," says Radio Montserrat general manager Rose Willock, who lost her home a month ago, "Montserrat will become just another island that was."

In what seems like another lifetime, this lush, mountainous landscape was called the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean, a tribute too to the Irish Catholics who settled there. In the 1970s George Martin, the Beatles' former record producer, opened Air Studios and transformed the Leeward island into a hip playground for the international rock set. Paul McCartney, Sting and Simply Red cut albums there, and exclusive villas dotted the shore.

Last week British authorities finally came forward with plans to resettle the remaining populace. The destroyer H.M.S. Liverpool moved into position off the north coast in case of an emergency evacuation. Local officials began registering people for a voluntary-relocation program that would take them to neighboring islands, where they would be put up in hotel rooms. London has agreed to pay passage to England for those wishing to resettle there.

Many people still don't want to leave. Some, fearing they will never be able to return, cannot quite believe their old life is gone. Others refuse to budge until the government compensates them for their losses. Montserrat officials asked the British government to pay evacuees $14,800 for each head of household, $11,111 for each additional adult and $7,407 for each child, but islanders complain that even this is not enough to make a fresh start in a foreign land. Many are getting bills for mortgages on homes that no longer exist, and their debts are mounting. "What are we supposed to do?" said an irate policeman. "Leave here and go on the dole?" Last Wednesday more than 200 people marched on the home of the island's British Governor, Frank Savage, demanding that the British government offer them more adequate compensation and promise to protect their land after their departure. "I want to leave, but I don't have the means," said protester Margaret Ryan, 41, who lost her home in the June 25 eruption. "Everything I had was tied up in my home."

The chief minister, Bertrand Osborne, resigned after the protests and was replaced Friday by a critic of British policy, David Brandt. Meanwhile Britain offered about $4,000 for each adult and $1,000 for each child who accepts a relocation package.

The crisis has been woefully mishandled from the start. Though it has been two years since the volcano became an obvious threat, there has been no general announcement of what people should do in the event of an emergency evacuation. The government has not undertaken any significant construction of temporary housing, and some shelters were in areas now deemed unsafe. There has been plenty of finger pointing, but it is unclear where the blame for the current situation truly lies. Montserrat has its own elected local government, yet remains a British colony. And so, Montserratians argue, Britain has an obligation to assist them.

Montserrat residents who stubbornly refuse to go are living in appalling conditions. Two-thirds of the island lies under a blanket of ash. Just a couple of restaurants and one gas station still function, and the hospital, now housed in a school, cannot care for the seriously ill. Nearly 1,500 people are consigned to the shelters that occupy every remaining church and school. At Gerald's Park, small children and adults are crowded in, 30 to a tent. In some shelters, there is one toilet for 50 people.

Basha Lewis, 34, a farmer, decided last week that he had had enough. With his wife and three sons, he reluctantly boarded a ferry bound for Antigua, heading for London and an uncertain future. "I don't know what I will do when I get there," he said. "But the only choice I have is to put my best foot forward." There's no fighting the volcano. All the people of Montserrat can do is get out of its way.