If you think Mount Vesuvius is scary, wait until you hear about Campi Flegrei! This supervolcano has 24 underground craters and makes Vesuvius look small in comparison. The crazy part? Half a million people live right in the danger zone today! Even though it hasn't erupted in 500 years, scientists have noticed it's getting more active lately. With over 1,000 small tremors happening each month, people are starting to pay attention. If Campi Flegrei blows, it could be a major disaster! Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00The last time this volcano erupted was about 500 years ago, but recently, small tremors have grown really frequent,
00:08to such an extent that scientists have been recording more than a thousand a month.
00:13I'm talking about the Campi Flegri supervolcano in Italy.
00:18At one point, just a few weeks ago, the area was rattled by a 4.4 magnitude earthquake with 150 tremors in just one night.
00:28It was the strongest earthquake in over 40 years. A lot of locals spent the night in their cars,
00:34but in the morning, the shakes were followed by another earthquake, a bit weaker, with a magnitude of 3.6.
00:42So, is Italy in danger?
00:45Well, the quake itself wasn't big enough to cause serious damage, but it evoked a lot of panic.
00:51At the moment, local authorities are working on grandiose emergency plans.
00:56If worse comes to worse, they'll have to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people.
01:01One of the reasons is the proximity of this area to Naples with more than 3 million inhabitants.
01:07At the moment, they're even considering an option of paying people to leave their homes.
01:14Right now, schools remain closed in the Campi Flegri area.
01:18The authorities are allocating more than 500 million euros to ensure the safety of buildings and constructions in the area.
01:25A yellow alert is still in place in the region where 80,000 people live.
01:30There's the so-called red zone, which is the most dangerous area.
01:35There are 1,250 houses in this red zone, and all of them will be at high seismic risk if an eruption begins.
01:43Plus, more than twice as many will be at medium risk.
01:48Italy is a country prone to seismic activity, and Pozzuoli is a densely populated area that is located on one of the most dangerous supervolcanoes in Europe.
01:59Campi Flegri has 24 hidden underground craters and dwarfs the better-known Vesuvius.
02:06Yes, the very volcano that wiped the ancient Roman city of Pompeii off the face of the Earth in 79 CE.
02:15This city thrived near the base of Mount Vesuvius at the Bay of Naples.
02:20In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20,000 people lived in Pompeii.
02:25They were merchants, manufacturers, farmers, and others.
02:29The soil in the region was rich and fertile, so there were lots of orchards and vineyards.
02:34Strangely, no one knew that this black Earth was the legacy of an earlier eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
02:41The area was a favorite summer destination for rich Romans.
02:45Sadly, at noon on August 24, 79 CE, all this prosperity came to an end.
02:52The peak of Mount Vesuvius exploded, sending a 10-mile-high mushroom cloud of ash and pumice into the stratosphere.
03:00For the next 12 hours, the eruption was wreaking havoc on the city.
03:05Volcanic ash and a hail of pumice stones, some of which were 3 inches in diameter, showered Pompeii.
03:11It forced the city's occupants to flee in terror.
03:15Around 2,000 people holed up in stone structures and cellars, paralyzed by fear.
03:21They hoped to wait out the eruption.
03:23Who knows, maybe if they had decided to leave the city immediately after the beginning of the eruption,
03:29they would have had some chances to survive.
03:32A westerly wind protected the city from the first stages of the eruption.
03:36But soon, a giant cloud of hot ash and gas rushed down the western slope of Vesuvius.
03:43It engulfed the city, burning everything in its way.
03:47This disastrous cloud was followed by a flood of volcanic mud and rock, which completely buried the city.
03:56As if the volcano was making sure no one would survive, a cloud of toxic gas poured onto the city,
04:02finishing the lives of a few survivors on August 25th.
04:06A flow of rock and ash followed.
04:09It collapsed roofs and walls and turned the city into a giant cemetery.
04:15When a supervolcano erupts, the consequences are usually catastrophic.
04:20Supervolcanoes have at least once had an eruption with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 8,
04:26which is the largest recorded number on the index.
04:29Supervolcanoes are often extremely large, with no cone at all.
04:34That's because they're typically the remains of gigantic magma chambers that once flared up, leaving behind a caldera.
04:42They're usually located over hotspots and appear when huge volumes of magma are trying to escape from deep underground.
04:49Eventually, they burst through Earth's surface.
04:52Sometimes, all this magma gets stuck, unable to break through the planet's crust.
04:58And then, massive pools of pressurized magma gather at a depth of several miles.
05:04The pressure keeps growing because more and more magma is trying to get to the surface.
05:09At one point, a supereruption goes off.
05:14The most recent supereruption happened in New Zealand.
05:17Well, when I say recent, I meant around 26,500 years ago.
05:23That's when a supervolcano beneath the surface of Lake Taupo spewed into the air more than 300 cubic miles of ash and pumice.
05:32Imagine 500,000 Great Pyramids of Giza flying up into the air at the same time.
05:38That's how incredibly powerful that eruption was!
05:42But the most exciting and confusing thing about the eruption was that the Taupo volcano didn't simply go off like many others.
05:51At first, everything was going as usual.
05:54Tons and tons of pressurized magma had built up under the surface, and the pressure was getting higher and higher.
06:01But after the rock cracked and the first portion of lava rushed out of the crater, something went wrong, and the supervolcano took a break.
06:09Only several months later, the disastrous eruption shook the ground.
06:13Thousands of tons of lava, rocks, and ash flew high into the atmosphere.
06:18The unusual pattern of Taupo still confuses scientists.
06:24The Indonesian eruption at Toba Caldera 75,000 years ago was the largest eruption in the last 2 million years.
06:32Experts estimate that the eruption could have released hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfuric acid.
06:39Which might have even caused a several degree cooling of the planet's surface.
06:43But nowadays, the impact is hard to detect because of glaciers that cover the ground afterward.
06:49There are also several so-called supervolcanoes that haven't lived up to this name yet because they've never produced any super eruptions.
06:57For example, in 1883, Indonesian volcano Krakatoa went off.
07:02The power of the eruption tore the volcano's walls open, and cold seawater rushed into its molten insides.
07:10The difference in temperatures made the volcano blow up with a deafening boom.
07:15It was clearly heard 3,000 miles away in Australia.
07:19It earned the blast the title of the loudest sound in history.
07:23But even though the consequences of this event were truly catastrophic, it still turned out not powerful enough to be called a super eruption.
07:33It only had a volcanic explosivity index of 6.
07:38Then, there's also Mauna Loa.
07:41It's a shield volcano, which means it won't produce explosive eruptions.
07:45But its sheer size makes this monster of a volcano extremely dangerous.
07:51At the moment, the volcano seems to be at peace with its surroundings.
07:56Research equipment doesn't show any signs of activity on Mauna Loa.
08:00But if Mauna Loa did suddenly erupt, lava flows could reach the ocean and the most populated and touristy places like Captain Cook very fast, in a matter of hours.
08:11The last time the volcano erupted, lava got as far as the outskirts of Hilo on the other side of the island.
08:19That's where the University of Hawaii is located.
08:22Luckily, people had a few weeks' warning to get ready for the disaster.
08:26Over its recorded history, Mauna Loa has been erupting pretty regularly, almost every six years.
08:32On the bright side, big island volcanoes including Mauna Loa aren't really very volatile.
08:38That's because they're shield volcanoes.
08:41These volcanoes got such a name because they aren't really very high and resemble a warrior's shield placed flat on the ground.
08:48Shield volcanoes are formed by very fluid lava.
08:51It travels way farther and forms much thinner flows than the lava erupted from a stratovolcano, which is conically shaped and tall, like the infamous Krakatoa in Indonesia.
09:03So, if Mauna Loa erupts, there probably won't be ash clouds or tons of debris.
09:09The most dangerous thing will be lava.
09:11Since Mauna Loa is a shield volcano, its lava is extremely fluid and voluminous, which allows it to flow far and fast.