Pompeii And Mt. Vesuvius

lasto i glemyr

Feb 2 2005, 04:36 AM

Anyone see the recent Discovery Channel special on Pompeii?

Anyway, if you didn't here's a brief...debrief:

In August of AD 79, Mt. Vesuvius in Italy erupted, burying nearby Roman cities such as Pompeii and Herculaneum with as much as 20 feet of ash and pumace. There was complete devastation in a three-mile radius around the volcano.

Scientists speculate that Vesuvius erupts with this much force about every 2000 years...so as you can see, they think it could very well happen again soon.

The problem is, back in AD 79, there were about 30,000 people in the area; now there are 3.5 million, so the devastation involved with such an eruption could be catastrophic.

Here's the dilemma: if scientists predict an eruption and they order an evacuation, this would be costly and people would lose trust in the government's judgement. If they don't evacuate, millions could die.

So what do you think of this situation? Or do you have any other info to add?

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szupie

Feb 2 2005, 09:56 AM

Yeah, I learned about that in my class, but I didn't watch the show.

I think they could do something like recommend people to leave, but it's not neccesary, so that people who are afraid could leave, but people who don't trust the government could stay.

Of course, that would kill a lot of people if a disaster happens, but the people who stayed had a warning, and they chose to stay...

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Qop

Feb 2 2005, 05:08 PM

If a threat like this is real (and we've that is quite real), the government should prepare an evacuation plan. Furthermore they should make it clear to the citizens how dangerous an eruption is, so they learn why they have to evacuate if necessary.

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kraizii88z

Feb 3 2005, 08:17 AM

That is quite the dilemma...It's hard to say, but when you really think about it, they're actually considering wasting thousandds of people's lives because they don't want to look bad?! --I'm sure the ancient people of Pompeii would have Loved a warning! ,false or otherwise

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Monkeymagic

Aug 10 2005, 09:57 AM

people who live in Naples aren't worried about it butperhaps they should be.

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srbecker

Aug 24 2005, 11:13 PM

We all live with some level of risk, even Americans - look at Los Angeles and the San Andreas fault. The cost of relocating is very high for many reasons: you need a new place to live, you lose business connections, you lose networks of friends and family, you lose your job, etc. In the past, people have always been reluctant to move, even in the face of stern warnings, and this trend will continue in the future. If the Italian government is serious about increasing safety, they need to provide a reasonable plan for the residents of Pompeii to relocate permantenty, and do this over a few years. If they issue a quick one-time "evacuate" warning and it turns out to be a false alarm, they will lose all credibility. Unfortunately, citizens rarely thank the government for looking out for their safety and instead criticize the government for creating inconveniences.

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Nemisis

Aug 27 2005, 06:35 PM

I saw this on TV a few days ago.

I didn't know the dilemma about the evacuation though.

My take is that they should evacuate. Who cares if they lose trust in the gov't. As the old saying goes, it's better to be safe than sorry. Or something like that.

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half

Aug 31 2005, 01:20 AM

I've heard a lot about this too. I think it will erupt soon also, but seeing as how their city was destroyed before and the thousands of people died, I don't think they would doubt a scientist saying it will erupt. I knew if I lived there, I would definitely leave if there was an evacuation notice.

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Mahanon

Sep 1 2005, 06:29 AM

Well it did happend before so the odd of it happening again are qute high, but I really doubt that something that major will happen again very soon anyway.

At least now we have systems in place to detect something like that, so it won't cause anyone to loose their life like Pompeii. But I am sure that something like that could happen again the only problem is detecting when it will actually happen again that is the major problem, after all a volcano could go dormant for centuries and them become active yet again whenever.

But another incident like that could happen again, just in another part of the world.

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Kid Saiyan

Sep 24 2005, 05:08 PM

Wow..i have been studying this topic in School in my LAtin lessons 2 years ago
so...
i think that it cannot happen again
i never really got a reasoin for why the mountain errupted in the first place.. i alwas thought it was like a sudden reaction to pollution or something...similar to the way we peopl suddenly sneeze on occasions when tiny particles of dust are in the atmosphere around us. The point im tryint to make is that i dont think that the mountain Vesuvius will ever errupt again as in its last erruption, it let out everything it had building inside for years...so i think its safe to say that Pompeii- rather whats left of it - is safe for now.

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iGuest

Jul 2 2009, 10:51 AM

Replying to Kid Saiyan Don’t be silly, Volcanic eruptions aren’t random events like sneezing. They are caused by plate movement which is ongoing and never ending therefore it is inevitable that Vesuvius will erupt again, it is just a matter of time. Vesuvius is said to have erupted at least 60 times since 79AD (when Pompeii was destroyed) and scientists have predicted another large eruption to occur any time now. Just because they have the means to predict volcanic eruptions does not mean they can save everyone; if 35 million people live in one area and they only have a few days to evacuate them all what is the likely outcome? The cost of people leaving their lives behind and moving somewhere else and also the difficulty of evacuating 35 million people within say 48 hours for example, would be a disaster. But man can only blame himself; if we are stupid enough to build towns and cities and urbanise dangerous areas in the middle of two tectonic plates where a volcano is sat and is decidedly active, then we must suffer the consequences.

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iGuest

Dec 11 2008, 01:34 PM

I'm more worried about yellowstone park if that explodes it will be a supervolcano Basically piroclastic flows (I can't spell soz) will block out the sun and send the northen hemisphere into another ice age almost all the people in america will die aswell.

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iGuest

May 15 2008, 09:39 AM

I'm not sure if it could happen again but I'm doing it for my GCSE course work so I have to get an answer. I went to the top of Vesuvius a few years ago and to weeks later when I was at homw it said on the news it was smoking so I is it possible...?

-reply by Elphie

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iGuest

Oct 28 2007, 08:16 PM

I think it could happen again in a blink of an eye because if scienticst prove it then it must be true I give them a 80% persentage that they are true so I feel bad for the people in pompeii.

-karen

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Pompeii And Mt. Vesuvius - Will it happen again?

Pompeii And Mt. Vesuvius - Will it happen again?

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