Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Last year Haroun Tazieff, of the Laboratoire de Volcanologie, Centre de Faibles Radioactivitiés, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, had to leave his post as director of the Service Volcanologique at the Institute of Physics of the Globe over the eruption of La Soufrière. Below, his account of the problems
