anxiously awaiting news of their families following the re-awakening of the island's volcano after more than 350 years.

Paget resident Mrs. Yolanda Lewis, who lived on Saba until she was 19 and is now married to a Bermudian, said she had spoken to her family on the telephone.

"I'm quite worried,'' she said. "They said scientists were monitoring everything and ships were coming in just in case they had to evacuate the island.

"Some of the foreigners with vacation homes there have left because they had gotten scared. Divers have been experiencing very warm waters where it's normally very cold, and all the springs have gone dry.

"They heard a roaring noise they thought was thunder in the distance, but then they felt tremors. Everyone is nervous.

"I don't know how they will get all the people off if anything happens.'' Mrs. Lewis now lives with Bermudian husband Eric on St. Michael's Road, Paget.

But until recently they were living on Saba, which is about 200 miles southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and is just five square miles.

"We built a house there and moved back there in 1989,'' she said. "But I couldn't get used to it again and Eric agreed to come back to Bermuda. I love it here but he loves it on Saba.'' Saba had two mild earthquakes last Friday, causing no injuries but worrying residents because the whole island is a volcano. Since June 4 there have been 24 tremors.

The quakes are the first in recent memory and have caused increasing concern among the 350 residents of the island's main town, which is on a plateau surrounded by volcanic domes.

The last eruption of the volcano came just before the Dutch settled Saba in 1640, said Alan Smith, a geologist at the University of Puerto Rico who has studied Saba for the Netherlands Antilles government.

Smith said the quakes were centered about five miles below the surface of the island, indicating that volcanic magma, or lava, was rising toward the surface. He said geologists would try to determine if the lava would reach the surface.

The strongest of the quakes hit on Wednesday night and measured 4.2 on the Richter scale, said Lloyd Lynch, director of the Seismic Research Unit of the University of West Indies-Trinidad.

The island, nicknamed the "Unspoiled Jewel,'' has a population of 1,000 and is popular with divers.