Little Bay, Montserrat Little Bay, Montserrat Little Bay is a town under construction, intended to be the future capital of the Caribbean island of Montserrat. It is adjacent to Brades. The official capital of Montserrat at Plymouth in the south of the island was abandoned since 1997 after it was buried by the eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano. Interim government buildings have since been built at Brades, becoming the political capital in 1998. The move was initially intended to be temporary, but it has remained the island's "de facto" capital ever since. The project is funded by the Government of Montserrat and
Barren Island (Andaman Islands) National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) spotted the volcano erupting on 23 January 2017. Abhay Mudholkar, the head of the team, said, "The volcano is erupting in small episodes of about five to ten minutes. During the day, only ash clouds were observed. However, after sundown, red lava fountains were spewing from the crater into the atmosphere and hot lava flowed streaming down its slopes." Based on Ar-Ar dating of samples from Barren Island it is now established that the oldest subaerial lava flows of the volcano are 1.6 million years old and the volcano is located on an oceanic crust