Rome could burn again
2007-02-28 11:18
Rome - At least 300 000 Italians living
near the Vesuvius volcano will be killed the next time it
erupts if they are not evacuated beforehand, according to a three dimensional super-computer simulation.
But, in a surprise, up to 200 000 others living in the
north-northwestern areas of the high-risk "Red Zone" could have
more time to escape thanks to the volcano's towering Mount Somma
rim, which acts as a natural barrier, scientists say.
"For the first time, we have seen that these flows could be
substantially diverted," Augusto Neri, of the National
Geophysical and Vulcanolgy Institute in Pisa, who led the
research, said on Tuesday.
"It seems that Mount Somma acts as an effective barrier. But
this doesn't mean that they're safe."
Although Vesuvius has slept for more than six decades,
scientists fear the next big eruption could rival the one in AD
79, which suffocated the ancient cities of Pompeii and
Herculaneum and killed about 16 000 people.
Authorities have a plan to evacuate the more than half a
million civilians living in the 18 towns within a 7km radius of Vesuvius who face the highest risk. They
estimate they can get everyone to safety within a week.
Neri's research, published in Geophysical Research Letters,
could give authorities a greater understanding of how the
volcano will behave in the event of a big eruption - and which
of those 18 communities need to be evacuated first.
"We've already passed the civil protection authorities these
results. They are going to consider some of the results of this
simulation in the revision of their emergency plan," he said.
Pompeii again?
Peter Baxter, at Cambridge University's Institute of Public
Health, who also participated in the study, said history looked
set to repeat itself by pummelling modern-day communities around
the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
"The pyroclastic flows are going to be pushed to the
south-side, toward the sea," he said, adding "that's where
Pompeii and Herculaneum are".
Neri said the Vesuvius computer simulation was the first in
3-D that showed what a big eruption would look like over a
period time, factoring in complex variables such as topography.
The scientists specifically tried to simulate the effects of
a collapse of the eruption column - what happens when the
exploding mushroom cloud is too heavy for the air, and the
material comes crashing down the sides of the volcano.
The crater sits some 1 280m above and 20km away from the Naples, Italy's third largest city.
Carlo Cavazzoni, who helped developed the code that allowed
the super-computer to interpret the data, said the team partly
based its research on an eruption in 1631 that killed 4 000
people.
Neri said many more simulations were needed but said the
first 3D model was a major step forward.
"It's the first time that such a complete model has been
applied at Vesuvius," he said.
- Reuters