What If Mount Vesuvius Erupted Today?

Mount Vesuvius is 1 of the almost dangerous volcanoes in the world, located in the nearly densely populated volcanic region in the globe. And experts say it is due for some other cataclysmic blowout.

Vesuvius looms over PompeiiVesuvius looms over the ruins of nearby Pompeii

In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius famously erupted, spewing a cloud of stones, ash and fumes 33 kilometres in to the air. More 2,000 people died and the thriving Roman city of Pompeii (as told in the Nature of Things dr.,Pompeii'due south People) was buried under metres of ash for centuries.

The only surviving eyewitness account was documented in two messages written past Pliny the Younger to historian Tacitus. "Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked circular: a dense blackness deject was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a inundation. We had scarcely sat down to balance when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy dark, but as if the lamp had been put out in a airtight room," he wrote. We now know that the eruption had 100,000 times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima bombing.

Mount Vesusius is However a Dangerous Volcano

Mount Vesuvius is one of the virtually unsafe volcanoes in the world, located in the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.

It'due south a stratovolcano, a type known for its explosive eruptions. It's very active, having blown a dozens times before, including afterwards the famous Pompeii consequence. It concluding erupted 1944, when 26 people were killed, nearby villages destroyed and U.s. airplanes based at the Pompeii airfield nearby coated with a thick layer of ash.

Today, Vesuvius sits on a 154 square-mile (400 square-kilometer) layer of magma and although its been silent for 72 years, experts say it is due for another cataclysmic blowout.

satellite map of Vesu ias and area

Vesuvius and the surrounding Naples expanse seen July, 2015. Photo: Copernicus Sentinel Information

Making Plans To Evacuate

The metropolis of Naples, with a population of over three meg people is located just a brusk 12 kilometres abroad. And another 600,000 people alive even closer, in the red zone (a altitude of ten kilometres from the crater) where they are in the direct path of mortiferous pyroclastic flows.

The eruption that levelled Pompeii measured a v (some experts say half dozen) on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. Each increased number indicates an eruption that is 10 times more powerful (the highest score on record so far being 8). It was preceeded past a powerful earthquake 17 years beforehand, but most accounts, the actual explosion was adequately sudden and lasted two days.

These eruptions are rare, scientists estimate that there have been merely 20 around the world since 1500. Vesuvius' concluding major eruption in 1631 was a VEI iv; the volcano started roaring and finally exploded well-nigh 6 days later. Notwithstanding, 6000 people are thought to have died.

If Vesuvius erupted today, the impairment would depend on the calibration of the eruption. Every bit a worst case scenario, experts are planning for a VEI 4.

volcano erupts, plume of smokeEyjafjallajökull erupts spewing a plumage of smoke into the atmosphere. Photo: iStock

Price of an Eruption

Even at that level, an eruption would create an intense heat boom capable of cooking people to decease in less than a 2d, followed by a pyroclastic menstruum of lava and rock while smoke and ashes would shoot into the temper. By some practiced estimates, a VEI 4 or 5 eruption could impale over 10,000 people and toll the Italian economy more than $20 billion. Millions of people would certainly lose power, water and transportation, some for months.

Like Eyjafjallajökull (VEI iv), which blew in 2010, an eruption would disrupt air travel and aircraft on the entire continent, this time for weeks — not days.  Depending on which way the current of air is blowing, Pompeii and most probable downtown Naples could exist buried in metres of ash creating work for future archaeologists as they uncover our Rick Astley CDs and Mutant Ninja Turtle figurines.

That's why the Vesuvius Observatory monitors seismic activity on Vesuvius 24/7 looking for signs of an impending eruption. The regime of Italy has prepared an emergency evactuation plan to movement the 600,000 people nearby out of damage's way inside 72 hours. It's besides actively trying to reduce the population living nearby by demolishing illegally synthetic buildings, establishing a national park around the volcano to prevent further structure and offering a fiscal incentive to go families to relocate.

But the reality is that Vesuvius, the Pompeii ruins and nearby Naples are a huge allure and vital to the local economy, drawing millions of tourists a year who are drawn to the fascinating site of a by civilization — a 2,000-year-old city frozen in fourth dimension and preseved past the same volcanic eruption that caused its destruction.

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