Saint-Pierre, a city in Martinique, no longer exists since May 8, 1902, when a fast-moving current of superheated gas, ash, and rock known as a pyroclastic flow, originating from Mount Pelée, wiped the city from the map. The city, which had nearly 28,000 people and was the largest in Martinique at the time, was destroyed in a matter of minutes. One of the few survivors was Louis-Auguste Cyparis, who was locked in a stone cell that can still be visited today. The cell in the Saint-Pierre prison still exists on the rue de la Prison and has been classified as a historical monument since 1979. On the morning of May 8, 1902, Mount Pelée released a cloud of burning gases, ashes, and glowing rock fragments that quickly moved down its slopes. This pyroclastic flow completely destroyed Saint-Pierre, killing nearly all of its inhabitants. The death toll is estimated at 28,000, including residents of Saint-Pierre, refugees from nearby areas, visitors from Fort-de-France, and the governor of Martinique. The disaster is considered the largest natural disaster of the twentieth century in France. Louis-Auguste Cyparis, a sailor and farmer from Précheur, had been sentenced to one month in the Saint-Pierre prison for a drunken brawl. He had escaped near the end of his sentence and was given eight days in the cell. The vaulted, thick-walled cell protected him from the pyroclastic flow. On May 11, rescue workers heard cries under the rubble of the prison and found Cyparis alive, seriously burned but alive. Cyparis was not the only survivor. Léon Compère-Léandre, who lived on the outskirts of the city, also escaped the disaster with serious burns. However, Cyparis became a worldwide legend after the Barnum & Bailey Circus hired him to display his scars on American stages. He traveled with the circus and became a celebrity at the beginning of the twentieth century. Posters presented him as the only survivor of Saint-Pierre, which erased the existence of Compère-Léandre. Cyparis eventually died in poverty in 1929 in Panama. The cell where he was imprisoned still stands today on the rue de la Prison in Saint-Pierre, among the ruins of the old city. The monument was listed as a historical monument on July 25, 1979, guaranteeing its preservation. The stone vault, thick walls, and small barred opening remain almost intact since 1902. In the months following the disaster, a lava spire rose from the crater to about 300 meters in height before collapsing in 1903, the last visible tremor of a mountain that had already taken everything.