A new Pompeii?

While Europe has suffered massive loss of life due to wars and famine in recent centuries, they have largely been spared the natural disasters that takes hundreds of thousands of lives like in Asia.
Scientists are warning of a new volcanic threat near Naples that could put half a million lives in jeapordy.

Quote: Pacomartin

Scientists are warning of a new volcanic threat near Naples that could put half a million lives in jeapordy.

How many of those scientists want bigger budgets and higher salaries?

It turns out that we now know - maybe volcanologists have known a long time - that the hotspots to worry about are calderas rather than the places that produce the classic volcano cone like Vesuvius. Those cones are largely volcanic dust, too fragile to survive the really big events, which are explosions followed by the magma receding, leaving a big 'caldera'

This spot you reference is a caldera. So is Yellowstone, the place for us to worry about. No cones to be seen either place.

There are several active volcanoes and more than a few super volcanoes. The Yellowstone Caldera could wipe out civilization off North America if it blew.

The people of Pompeii died in a pretty horrible way. Mostly they suffocated and burned from volcanic ash. That's really nasty stuff. Ash isn't even a good name for it, more like very fine sand, except it's made of jagged pieces. It's highly abrasive and tends to stick to things. Fresh from an eruption, tis' also at very high temperature.

Quote: odiousgambit

This spot you reference is a caldera. So is Yellowstone, the place for us to worry about. No cones to be seen either place.

Good insight.

Campi Flegrei is not likely to blow, but it would be the worst natural disaster in European history.

Quote: Pacomartin

Good insight.

Campi Flegrei is not likely to blow, but it would be the worst natural disaster in European history.

Do the "Black Death" or the 1918 flu pandemic qualify as "natural" disasters?

The black death probably does; the flu pandemic was partly natural but highly influenced by military mobilization and population mixing.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Do the "Black Death" or the 1918 flu pandemic qualify as "natural" disasters?

Usually famines and plagues are considered separately, because the loss of life could take years to occur. In the USA more than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic of 1918.

But the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is usually considered deadliest natural disaster in North American history. despite only an estimated 6,000–12,000 fatalities.



The 1755 Lisbon earthquake killed 10,000 and 100,000 and is one of Europe's greatest natural disasters using the narrower definition, as certainly many more people died in the Bubonic plague, the Irish potato famine, and many times in wars.

Quote: Pacomartin

In the USA more than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic of 1918.

Hemingway was 19 in 1918. His father was
a doctor who dealt first hand with the
outbreak. Hemingway lost friends he'd
grown up with, young men like himself.
He was terrified of the flu for the rest of
his life, as were most who went thru
that time. It was a plague, we have no
idea what it means to feel helpless as
those around us drop dead and we have
no defense against it. If I was a Christian
I would blame god. As an atheist, I blame
our ignorance of how disease works.

Irish potato famine? It was a fungus and the fungus can not read a map. So the fungus reached Scotland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France. Yet it was only the Irish potato famine. Seven out of ten ships leaving Irish ports carried food... but the Irish had no money to buy it. It was English laws that caused the Irish to die.