The Most Dangerous Side of Every Caribbean Island

Every Caribbean island has one place you should not stand. On most of them it's a volcano. On one it's a lake you can walk across. On another it's a trench in the sea floor deeper than any mountain is tall. This is the most dangerous place on every island in the Caribbean. The Caribbean sits on two different plate boundaries, and that single fact explains almost everything about the region. The eastern arc — Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, St Kitts, Saba, St Eustatius — is a volcanic chain where one plate is sliding under another right now. The western islands — Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico — sit on a different boundary, which is why their danger looks nothing like the east's. In this video: Plymouth, Montserrat, the only capital city in the world abandoned and still officially the capital. Mount Pelée in 1902 and the prisoner who survived it. The 2021 La Soufrière eruption on St Vincent. Kick 'em Jenny, the live submarine volcano north of Grenada. Dominica's Boiling Lake and why its hazard level changes with the water level. St Lucia's drive-in volcano. Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas. The Puerto Rico Trench and the Milwaukee Deep. The Cayman Trough. The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault under Port-au-Prince. Jamaica's Cockpit Country. Lake Enriquillo rising into farmland. Cuba's Zapata Swamp. Trinidad's Pitch Lake. And why Barbados, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao have none of it. ### CHAPTERS 00:00 — The Most Dangerous Places in the Caribbean 01:05 — Why Caribbean Islands Are So Dangerous 02:10 — Montserrat: The Capital Buried by a Volcano 03:15 — Martinique: Mount Pelée and the Prisoner Who Survived 04:20 — St Vincent: La Soufrière Eruption 05:05 — Kick 'em Jenny: The Volcano Under the Sea 06:00 — Dominica: The Boiling Lake 07:05 — St Lucia: The Drive-In Volcano 07:50 — St Kitts, Saba & St Eustatius 09:00 — The Caribbean's Danger Beneath the Water 09:40 — Bahamas: Dean's Blue Hole 10:35 — Puerto Rico Trench: The Deepest Point in the Atlantic 11:30 — The Cayman Trough 12:15 — Haiti: The Fault Beneath Port-au-Prince 13:10 — Jamaica: Cockpit Country 14:05 — Dominican Republic: Lake Enriquillo 14:55 — Cuba: Zapata Swamp 15:45 — Trinidad: Pitch Lake 16:40 — Barbados, Aruba, Bonaire & Curaçao 17:35 — Why Some Caribbean Islands Have No Volcanoes 18:30 — The Real Reason the Caribbean Is Dangerous 19:20 — Where Is the Most Dangerous Place on Your Island? Tell me in the comments — if you're from one of these islands, where's the real dangerous place on yours?