Naples Times
Where’s Pompeii gone?
Yesterday was like any normal day, the skies
were blue, the town was full of people, the
gladiators were preparing for yet another fight
and the people were hard at work. With the
elections soon coming in Pompeii, it was a
tense time for politics. People were acting as
though it was a normal day – because it was a
normal day, until 1 o’clock.
Mount Vesuvius, what we thought was
just a normal mountain, is actually a volcano,
as the unfortunate 5,000 people of Pompeii
found out. In the morning there were a few
minor earth tremors, nothing too unusual. But
at 1 o’clock Vesuvius exploded, causing
tonnes of smoke, dust and ash (all formed from
the magma inside Vesuvius,) to launch 15
kilometres into the sky. As the ash lost its
thrust the wind carried it over Pompeii,
plunging the city into darkness as it blocked
the sun’s rays.
As the hot ash cloud that was now
overshadowing Pompeii cooled down and
solidified stones of pumice fell to the ground,
along with lava bombs that rocketed down at a
speed of 200 kilometres an hour. The cloud of
ash created havoc with frequent lightning
bolts, striking down at random. As tonnes of
pumice gathered on the roofs of the houses,
people began to flee from the city, from fear
that it was a sign from the gods; some of the
unfortunate people were struck down and
either injured or killed from a lava bomb.
The early warning signs from Mount Vesuvius
As the rain of rocks continued, the
danger mounted up for the people who had
sought shelter in homes, as roofs began to
collapse under the weight, unleashing a
cascade of rocks to fall on top of the people
inside.
Soon asfter the ash cloud has risen to
25 kilometres in the air and 100,000 tonnes of
ash was still being thrown into the air per
second,
25th August 79AD
which adds to the mass of the blackened cloud.
Along with this ash poisonous gases were
released, and the gases caused the desperate
people to suffocate.
The volcano then unleashed its next
weapon of destruction upon the people of
Herculaneum. A burning pyroclastic flow –
much faster, hotter and deadlier than a lava
flow – was sprinting down the side of the
mountain toward the people of Herculaneum.
The pyroclastic flow was over 500°c hot and
travelled at 100 kilometres an hour, meaning
that there was no time for any of the people of
Herculaneum to flee, but at least their deaths
were instantaneous and short.
Pyroclastic flow
Wells in Pompeii then became blocked
with stones of pumice, making water short of
supply. Slaves fled the city; regardless of what
their master said even in the knowledge that if
they were caught that they would be killed. As
people began to panic they started to loot and
thieve, because what did they have to lose?
People started to die slowly and painfully,
mainly from suffocation caused by the
poisonous gas that was released from
Vesuvius.
The volcano then unleashed yet another
pyroclastic flow, this time headed towards
Pompeii. Any of the people who had survived
the pumice was killed by this surely. These
people were not so lucky; this pyroclastic flow
killed them slower and more painfully. On the
first breadth they would swallow, a liquid
formed in their lungs, on the second the liquid
turned to cement like mixture, and on the third
the cement like mixture would solidify and
leave the person coughing and suffocating to
die slowly and horribly.
In total 10 billion tonnes of ash dust and
rock had left the volcano, covering the city of
Pompeii along with its 5,000 inhabitants, possibly
never to be seen again.
Both images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (public domain)