Back in A.D. 79, a catastrophic volcanic eruption shook southern Italy, resulting in one of history’s most devastating natural calamities. The deadly event claimed the lives of over 1,500 individuals in the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Recent research indicates that powerful earthquakes occurring simultaneously with the eruption might have contributed to the death toll, as revealed by volcanologist Domenico Sparice and his team from the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia in Naples, as published on July 17 in Frontiers in Earth Science.
Through their analysis, Sparice and his colleagues examined the ruins of collapsed structures in Pompeii, along with the remains of two individuals discovered within one of these buildings. The injuries observed on the skeletons closely resemble those caused by building collapses during modern earthquakes, according to the team’s findings.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius almost two millennia ago unleashed dense clouds of scorching gases, ash, and rocks into the atmosphere, creating a lethal mix that swiftly descended upon the nearby Roman settlements. Additionally, the volcano unleashed pyroclastic flows, which are fast-moving currents of hot gas and rock, racing down its slopes towards the cities at its base.
Pliny the Younger, an eyewitness to the catastrophe, chronicled the eruption in a series of letters from his viewpoint in Misenum, situated across the Bay of Naples from the volcano. In one of his letters, he described feeling “earth tremors” at Misenum that escalated into violent shaking, causing everything to feel as if it were being overturned.
2024-08-07 12:00:00
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