What If Mount Vesuvius Erupted Today?

Mountain Vesuvius is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the globe, located in the well-nigh densely populated volcanic region in the earth. And experts say it is due for another cataclysmic blowout.

Vesuvius looms over PompeiiVesuvius looms over the ruins of nearby Pompeii

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

The only surviving eyewitness account was documented in two letters written by Pliny the Younger to historian Tacitus. "Ashes were already falling, non as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. We had scarcely saturday down to residuum when darkness fell, non the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, merely every bit 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 Still a Unsafe Volcano

Mountain Vesuvius is one of the nigh dangerous volcanoes in the earth, located in the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.

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

Today, Vesuvius sits on a 154 square-mile (400 foursquare-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 area seen July, 2015. Photo: Copernicus Sentinel Data

Making Plans To Evacuate

The city of Naples, with a population of over 3 one thousand thousand people is located just a brusk 12 kilometres away. And another 600,000 people live even closer, in the cerise zone (a distance of 10 kilometres from the crater) where they are in the straight path of mortiferous pyroclastic flows.

The eruption that levelled Pompeii measured a 5 (some experts say half dozen) on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. Each increased number indicates an eruption that is ten times more than powerful (the highest score on record and so far beingness 8). It was preceeded past a powerful convulsion 17 years beforehand, just most accounts, the actual explosion was fairly sudden and lasted two days.

These eruptions are rare, scientists estimate that there have been just xx effectually the world since 1500. Vesuvius' final major eruption in 1631 was a VEI 4; the volcano started roaring and finally exploded about six days subsequently. Nonetheless, 6000 people are thought to have died.

If Vesuvius erupted today, the damage would depend on the scale of the eruption. As a worst instance scenario, experts are planning for a VEI 4.

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

Toll of an Eruption

Even at that level, an eruption would create an intense estrus blast capable of cooking people to death in less than a 2nd, followed by a pyroclastic flow of lava and rock while smoke and ashes would shoot into the temper. Past some good estimates, a VEI 4 or 5 eruption could kill over 10,000 people and cost 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 shipping on the entire continent, this time for weeks — non days.  Depending on which way the wind is bravado, Pompeii and most likely downtown Naples could be buried in metres of ash creating piece of work for time to come archaeologists every bit 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 government of Italy has prepared an emergency evactuation plan to move the 600,000 people nearby out of harm's way within 72 hours. Information technology'southward also actively trying to reduce the population living nearby past demolishing illegally synthetic buildings, establishing a national park around the volcano to prevent farther construction and offering a fiscal incentive to get families to relocate.

But the reality is that Vesuvius, the Pompeii ruins and nearby Naples are a huge attraction and vital to the local economic system, drawing millions of tourists a year who are drawn to the fascinating site of a by culture — a 2,000-twelvemonth-old metropolis frozen in time and preseved by the aforementioned volcanic eruption that caused its destruction.

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