Ludger Sylbaris

Common card · No. 314954

Ludger Sylbaris (1 June 1874 – c. 1929, aged 55), also known as Louis-Auguste Cyparis, was a Martiniquais sailor who became known as one of three known survivors of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique. The event killed an estimated 30,000 people in Saint Pierre, known as the "Paris of the West Indies", located at the base of the volcano, when a pyroclastic flow engulfed the city, completely destroying it. Sylbaris was shielded from the immediate blast and its effects, including heat, debris, volcanic gas and ash, in an isolated outdoor jail cell. Four days after the eruption, a rescue team heard Sylbaris' cries from the rubble of the prison. Although badly burned, he survived and was able to provide an account of the event. Sylbaris travelled with the Barnum & Bailey circus and became something of an early 20th-century celebrity.

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