 NARRATOR: VESUVIUS IS THE
 WORLD'S MOST
 DANGEROUS VOLCANOS.
 JUST FSIX MILES FROM THE
 BUSTLING CITY OF NAPLES,
 THIS RESTLESS GIANT
 COULD KILL MILLIONS IN A
 FRACTION OF A SECOND.
 THE QUESTION IS, WHEN.
 NEARBY LAY RUINOUS
 CITIES OF POMPEII AND
 HERCULANEUM.
 THEY ARE HAUNTING
 REMINDERS OF THE VOLCANO'S
 PAST AND POTENTIAL WRATH.
 NOW, SCIENTISTS ARE
 FURIOUSLY TRYING TO
 PREDICT WHAT THIS SLEEPING
 MONSTER WILL DO NEXT,
 BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
 THEY'LL USE ANCIENT
 ARTIFACTS AND STARTLING
 NEW SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE
 TO UNRAVEL THE SECRETS OF
 VESUVIUS.
 NO VOLCANO IS MORE CLOSELY
 MONITORED THAN VESUVIUS,
 WITH GOOD REASON.
Federica Raia: One of the
most important things that
people should understand
about Vesuvius is that
it's alive.
It's a volcano and we
have no control over it.
The power of nature
is unmatchable.
 NARRATOR: VESUVIUS HAS
 ERUPTED HUNDREDS OF TIMES,
 WITH CATASTROPHIC
 CONSEQUENCES.
 THE MOST INFAMOUS IS
 THE ERUPTION IN 79 A-D.
 IT ANHILIATES THOUSANDS
 OF PEOPLE AT POMPEII AND
 HERCULANEUM IN THE
 BLINK OF AN EYE,
 AND IT COULD DO THE
 SAME THING AGAIN.
Charles Pellegrino: We can
be sure that Vesuvius is
going to erupt again.
And the best predictor of
future behavior is always
past behavior and roughly
every 2000 years give or
take 200 years or so we
end up with a giant rocket
engine aimed up at the
sky and the surge clouds.
 NARRATOR: AND TODAY, THE
 STAKES HAVE NEVER BEEN
 HIGHER.
 SCIENTISTS USED TO THINK
 THE CITY OF NAPLES WOULD
 BE OUT OF HARM'S WAY
 WHEN VESUVIUS REAWAKENS.
 BUT RECENTLY DISCOVERED
 EVIDENCE FROM A BRONZE AGE
 ERUPTION, NEARLY
 4,000 YEARS AGO,
 IS FORCING SCIENTISTS
 TO RECONSIDER.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
The Bronze Age eruption
impacted mostly the area
to the west of Vesuvius,
which includes Naples.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
The people who live in
Naples think they're safe,
because they know the last
time there was an
enormous eruption,
it was Pompei to the
south that was hit.
There's no reason at
all that it should erupt
toward the south.
It could erupt straight
towards the heart of
Naples.
 NARRATOR: IF THE ERUPTION
 HAPPENS IN THE NEAR
 FUTURE, RESEARCHERS FEAR
 THAT THE AREA WON'T BE
 PREPARED FOR SUCH
 A CATASTROPHE.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
The official advice is,
people should be moving
away from this area to
have fewer victims
when the trouble comes;
and some sort of trouble
is bound to come.
But people won't, and the
population is actually
increasing, and buildings,
houses are getting closer
to the crater of Vesuvius,
not further away.
And the problems of
evacuation are enormous.
 NARRATOR: NOW, SCIENTISTS
 ARE TRYING TO DETERMINE
 WHEN THIS VOLCANO
 WILL RE-AWAKEN.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
Vesuvius stands there as a
wonderful, visible
symbol of, you know,
we've got this enormous
pistol pointed at your
heads.
 NARRATOR: EXPERTS WONDER
 IF THEY WILL DETECT
 WARNING SIGNS EARLY ENOUGH
 TO GET PEOPLE OUT OF
 HARM'S WAY.
 IF THEY DON'T, COULD
 NAPLES BE THE NEXT
 POMPEII.
 LARGE-SCALE ERUPTIONS
 OF VESUVIUS ARE CALLED
 PLINIAN ERUPTIONS.
 THEY CAN KILL THOUSANDS OF
 PEOPLE IN A FRACTION OF A
 SECOND BY UNLEASHING
 SOMETHING WHAT'S KNOWN A
 PYROCLASTIC
 FLOW, OR SURGE.
John Rennie: Eventually
the hot column of air
above the volcano can't
hold up the weight of all
of this ash and rock and
cinder and the sky anymore
and at that point it all
collapses downward and
it's essentially
like an avalanche,
dropping out of the sky
from several miles up
except it's not an
avalanche of snow it's an
avalanche of cinders and
rocks that may have a
temperature of more than a
1000 degrees and it may be
moving 100s of
miles an hour.
Someone who had the
misfortune to be near a
pyroclastic flow and in
its path would scarcely
have a moment to even know
that it was coming before
he or she was killed.
Charles Pellegrino:
Th World Trade Center,
the combined force of the
twin towers falling was
1.6 kilotons and the surge
clouds going out from them
was less than 1/10000th of
what Vesuvius did in 79.
 NARRATOR: THERE ARE OFTEN
 THOUSANDS OF YEARS BETWEEN
 PLINIAN ERUPTIONS
 OF VESUVIUS.
 BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE
 VOLCANO REMAINS QUIET.
 SMALLER, OR WHAT
 SCIENTISTS CALL
 SUB-PLINIAN ERUPTIONS HAVE
 OCCURRED SIX TIMES IN THE
 LAST 500 YEARS.
John Rennie: The
difference between a
plinain volcanic eruption
and a sub-plinian one is
really just a
matter of scale.
Plinian eruptions throw
essentially a mountain's
worth of material up into
the sky and they may be
raining a gigantic amount
of material over the
landscape for many,
many, many miles.
Sub-plinian events are
essentially the same,
just scaled way down.
 NARRATOR: SUB-PLINIAN
 ERUPTIONS MAY NOT BE AS
 EXPLOSIVE, BUT THEY
 ARE STILL DEADLY.
 THE MOST RECENT OCCURRED
 DURING WORLD WAR TWO.
John Rennie: The 1944
eruption of Vesuvius was a
sub-plinian
eruption, that is,
it was small potatoes
compared to the one that
destroyed Pompeii.
Still, it was a dangerous
explosion in its own right.
It dropped enough
cinder and rock over the
landscape that it killed
26 people who were trapped
inside structures
that collapsed.
 NARRATOR: THE LATEST
 STATISTICS SUGGESTS THAT
 THE MAGNITUDE OF THE NEXT
 ERUPTION WILL BE AT LEAST
 SUB-PLINIAN.
 NARRATOR: NOW, THE RACE IS
 ON TO DETERMINE WHEN THAT
 CATASTROPHE WILL OCCUR.
Federica Raia: Th
prediction of Vesuvius is
very complicated business.
It's impossible to predict
much in advance the
eruption of any volcano.
 NARRATOR: SCIENTISTS MUST
 HUNT FOR CLUES HIDDEN IN
 THE VOLCANO'S PAST TO
 DETERMINE ITS FUTURE.
 AUGUST 24, 79 A-D.
 SOUTHERN ITALY.
 THE USUALLY PEACEFUL
 MOUNT VESUVIUS BEGINS TO
 VIOLENTLY ERUPT.
 A COLUMN OF ROCK, SMOKE AND
 GAS BLASTS INTO THE AIR.
 THE COLUMN STRETCHES
 TWENTY MILES HIGH AND
 RAINS DENSE, HEAVY
 DEBRIS OVER THE AREA,
 INCLUDING THE ROMAN
 CITIES OF POMPEII AND
 HERCULANEUM.
John Rennie: Pompeii and
Herculaneum were part of a
little thriving set of
agricultural communities
that were around Vesuvius.
When the eruption
in 79 AD happened,
the people wouldn't have
known what to think.
Remember, the Romans
didn't even have a word
for what a volcano was.
 NARRATOR: LOCAL RESIDENTS
 HAVE NO IDEA THE MOUNTAIN
 IN THEIR BACKYARD IS
 A TICKING TIME BOMB,
 AND THE WARNING SIGNS,
 INCLUDING A POWERFUL
 EARTHQUAKE IN 62
 A-D, WENT UNHEEDED.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
People really had no idea
what was happening.
There are loads and loads of
signs of trouble coming up.
They couldn't read them.
They continued
life as normal.
The biggest sign that they
missed was the earthquake
of about 17 years
earlier, of course.
They continued rebuilding,
mending cracks in the
walls, propping things
up, redecorating,
carrying on with life.
So it's quite evident they
had no conception what was
going to hit them.
They had no idea that that
earthquake was part of a
long-term process.
 NARRATOR: SCIENTISTS
 BELIEVE THAT THE 79 A-D
 ERUPTION CAN PROVIDE VITAL
 CLUES TO WHAT VESUVIUS
 WILL DO NEXT.
 SEISMOLOGIST MARCELLO
 MARTINI IS THE DIRECTOR OF
 THE VESUVIUS OBSERVATORY.
 HE AND HIS TEAM CARRY THE
 HEAVY BURDEN OF MONITORING
 VESUVIUS 24 HOURS A
 DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK.
 NARRATOR: IF DRAMATIC
 CHANGES AT THE CRATER
 APPEAR ON THEIR SCREENS,
 THEY ARE THE FIRST LINE OF
 DEFENSE.
 NARRATOR: ONE HUNDRED
 MONITORING STATIONS ARE
 STRATEGICALLY PLACED
 AROUND THE VOLCANO AND
 THROUGHOUT THE REGION.
 THEY COLLECT AND TRANSMIT
 DATA IN REAL TIME.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
This includes a thermal
camera, which give us
information about the
temperature
inside the crater.
And then there are
sensors over there,
which collect gas.
All data collected here
are transmitted directly
to Naples Vesuvius
observatory,
about ten miles
far from here.
 NARRATOR: AS
 DATA STREAMS IN,
 RESEARCHERS WATCH FOR
 PRECURSORS SUCH AS
 TEMPERATURE OR GAS
 CHANGES IN THE CRATER.
 BUT THEY ALSO KNOW THAT
 EARTHQUAKES ARE OFTEN
 ANOTHER EARLY WARNING SIGN
 AND A SUDDEN INCREASE IN
 SEISMIC ACTIVITY COULD
 MEAN THE MAGMA BENEATH THE
 GROUND IS MOVING UPWARDS.
 NARRATOR: THE MOST RECENT
 DATA SHOWS THAT VESUVIUS
 IS VERY MUCH ALIVE.
 NARRATOR: THEIR CHALLENGE
 IS TO INTERPRET THE
 SEISMIC ACTIVITY.
 SOME MOVEMENT COULD SIGNAL
 AN IMPENDING ERUPTION.
 BUT OTHER MOVEMENT COULD
 JUST BE ROUTINE SHIFTING
 OF THE GROUND.
Raia: Some of the
indicators of the magma
coming to the surface
is seismic activity.
We have the
magma coming up,
they create a
lot of fractures,
or openings so you
have earthquakes,
indicating
something is moving,
but what if the
magma stops?
Then you don't have
an eruption there.
 NARRATOR: MARTINI BELIEVES
 THAT THE TIME TO WORRY IS
 WHEN EARTHQUAKES START
 HAPPENING IN SWARMS,
 OR SEQUENCES OF SEVERAL
 EARTHQUAKES TAKING PLACE
 IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
 NARRATOR: IF AN
 ERUPTION IF COMING,
 SWARMS MAY ALSO BE
 ACCOMPANIED BY OTHER
 PRECURSORS, SUCH AS GAS
 COMPOSITION CHANGES OR
 GROUND SWELLING
 NEAR THE MOUNTAIN.
Raia: Not one indicator
will tell you what is
going to happen for sure.
 NARRATOR: SO SCIENTISTS
 MUST SEARCH FOR OTHER
 WARNING SIGNS THAT
 VESUVIUS HAS UNLEASHED IN
 THE PAST, IN AN ATTEMPT
 TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM
 THE FUTURE.
 NARRATOR: THE SEISMIC
 ACTIVITY LEADING UP TO
 VESUVIUS' 79 AD ERUPTION
 WASN'T THE ONLY MISSED
 CLUE OF POTENTIAL DANGER.
 IN FACT, EVIDENCE OF
 PREVIOUS ERUPTIONS
 SURROUNDED THE AREA.
 THE VERY MATERIAL USED
 TO CONSTRUCT AND MEND
 BUILKDINGS WAS REMNANTS
 OF PAST DESTRUCTION.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
Virtually every bit of
stone you see, out of
which they make their
houses, is precisely the
product of a previous
eruption.
If we look
around ourselves,
you can see some
sort of yellow stuff,
and that is the tufo which
is produced by the ash
from an eruption
that compacts.
 NARRATOR: BUT PEOPLE HAD
 NO IDEA THAT VESUVIUS
 COULD PRODUCE
 THIS MATERIAL.
 AND WHEN WARNIGN SIGNS
 OF THE ERUPTION STARTED
 PLAUGING THE AREA,
 THEY WENT UNRECOGNIZED.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
What we're now discovering
is that there were
other signs of which the
earthquake was
only a fragment.
 NARRATOR: ANDREW
 WALLACE-HADRILL HAS BEEN
 EXCAVATING THE ANCIENT
 CITIES OF POMPEII AND
 HERCULANEUM FOR
 MORE THAN A DECADE.
 HE BELIEVES NEWLY
 UNCOVERED EVIDENCE OF
 GROUND SWELLING AT
 HERCULANEUM BEFORE THE
 79 AD ERUPTION, COULD BE A
 CRITICAL CLUE TO WHAT WILL
 HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
The whole earth around the
Bay of Naples was bobbing
up and down as there were
movements in the
magma chamber.
It heaves up and
down by this process,
which the scientists
call bradisism,
which is the Greek
for slow earthquake,
slow shaking.
And so over a
matter of decades,
you don't perceive it as
a movement of the earth,
you perceive it as
movement of the sea.
The sea suddenly
seems to be coming up,
and then going away.
And this over many years.
 NARRATOR: WALLACE-HADRILL
 AND A TEAM OF SCIENTISTS
 HAVE DISCOVERED THAT
 DRAMATIC CHANGES TOOK
 PLACE AT THE SHORELINE
 BEFORE THE 79 AD ERUPTION.
 THE LAND MOVED UP AND DOWN
 BY AS MUCH AS 15 FEET OVER
 THE COURSE OF 50 YEARS.
 A RESULT OF THE GROWING
 MAGMA CHAMBER PUSHING UP
 ON THE LAND AND CAUSING
 THE SEA TO RETREAT.
 THEN THE LAND WOULD
 RETRACT AND THE SEA WATER
 WOULD COME IN, CREATING
 A NEW SHORELINE.
Menke: Sometimes the
land will go up ten,
twenty feet in the course
of a couple weeks or
months, then
back down again.
These are caused by
changes in pressure of the
magma beneath the volcano.
Pressure goes up, and
the land goes, up.
Pressure goes down
the land goes down.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
Around here you can see
pretty much the
whole sequence.
The sea is out and they
build their foundations on
top of a beach.
And you're seeing this sea
sand cut underneath it,
all the way around here.
And then you can see signs
of the sea coming back in
again.
(points to foundation)
Look at the edge there,
you see how
it's all eroded.
The sea has been
breaking against it,
and it's actually been
coming up to this level.
So that's pretty dramatic
evidence that at some
point, a very late point,
the sea is splashing over
our feet here.
But at the earliest point, the
sea's got to be way back.
 NARRATOR: TODAY'S
 SHORELINE IS SEVERAL
 HUNDRED FEET FROM
 THE ANCIENT CITY.
 BUT 2,000 YEARS AGO, THE
 WATER REACHED THE BASE OF
 THESE BUILDINGS
 AT HERCULANEUM.
 AROUND THE CORNER, EVEN
 MORE EVIDENCE OF THE
 SIGNIFICANT GROUND
 SWELLING BECOMES APPARENT.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
We're in an area here,
which we've only excavated
in the last few days.
We've been excavating
this great big wall,
great thick wall, which is
designed precisely to hold
the seawater back.
And you can see that the
ground level at the time
they built the wall
was right up here.
You see the way it
corresponds to those
arches there, it
corresponds to ground
floor level, except
under that level there is
another floor, which we
discovered by digging
down.
Another set of arches.
And what we discovered was
when this great tower of a
building was built,
the sea was much lower,
and they could have
another level down there.
The level which we've
reached in excavation now,
you can see we haven't
reached the beach yet.
We probably need to
go down half a meter,
maybe as much as a meter,
to find the original
beach level.
 NARRATOR: THIS DRAMATIC
 MOVEMENT SHOWS THAT THE
 MAGMA CHAMBER WAS
 CONTINUALLY ACTIVE,
 READY TO WREAK
 HAVOC ON THE AREA.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
Right down beneath us,
2 km and more, there's
the magma chamber,
and it's pushing upward
and heating the material,
the fluids in the
surface above.
And then there are
moments when it goes down,
and pushing it up, and
it's gone down again,
and the sea is
swirling around.
And then finally, you
get your eruption.
 NARRATOR: TODAY,
 SCIENTISTS APPLY THIS NEW
 DISCOVERY TO THEIR OWN
 MONITORING OF VESUVIUS.
 A SIMILAR CHANGE IN LAND
 LEVEL WOULD BE A MAJOR
 SIGNAL THAT SOMETHING
 IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill: I
you're around this area,
and you notice that the
ground level is changing
dramatically, and
the sea is coming in,
you would be well advised
to get out rather rapidly.
 NARRATOR: IF SCIENTISTS
 CAN UNDERSTAND THE
 CONDITIONS JUST
 BEFORE PAST ERUPTIONS,
 THEY WILL BE BETTER
 PREPARED FOR THE
 INEVITABLE.
 SO TODAY, VOLCANOLOGIST
 GIUSEPPE MASTROLORENZO IS
 CLIMBING TO VESUVIUS'
 CRATER TO COLLECT ROCK
 SAMPLES FOR ANALYSIS.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
This is very important in
order to investigate
the conditions in magma
chamber just before
the eruptions.
 NARRATOR: WITHIN THESE
 ROCKS ARE TINY CRYSTALS,
 INVISIBLE TO
 THE NAKED EYE.
 THEY CONTAIN GASES THAT
 MAY HELP DETERMINE THE
 SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
 BEFORE VESUVIUS ERUPTS.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo: A
sequence of studies in the
laboratory can give us
information also about the
timing of magma rising
from the magma chamber to
the surface.
 NARRATOR: IF HE
 IS SUCCESSFUL,
 THIS INFORMATION CAN HELP
 DECIPHER HOW MUCH TIME
 PEOPLE WILL HAVE TO ESCAPE
 ONCE THE ERUPTION BEGINS.
 IT COULD BE A CRITICAL
 CLUE FOR AREA RESIDENTS
 WHO HOPE TO AVOID THE GRIM
 REALITY OF THE VOLCANO'S
 PAST FURY.
 NARRATOR: WHEN THE
 VESUVIUS ERUPTION OF 79 AD
 BEGINS, CHAOS ENSUES.
 PEOPLE RUSH TO
 LOCATE FAMILY,
 GATHER THEIR BELONGINGS,
 AND FIGURE OUT THE SAFEST
 PLACE TO HIDE.
Charles Pellegrino: People
realized that this was
very bad, a lot of people,
probably most people did
begin evacuating
very quickly.
It's like any cross
section of people.
Some will say this is
bad, it's scary, it's big,
I want to get out of here.
Others will go into this
nesting urge and denial.
John Rennie: People would
naturally have been trying
to figure out how
to get to safety,
but where do they go?
Do they run away,
where do they run to?
It seems to be everywhere.
So naturally a lot of
people in the cities,
would think to try to
gather up whatever family
members or animals they
could and go indoors,
to hide inside
their homes.
 NARRATOR: BUT THOSE
 WHO DID NOT IMMEDIATELY
 EVACUATE FACED A
 TERRIFYING END.
 AS THE MINUTES TICKED BY,
 MORE AND MORE ASH AND ROCK
 PILED UP ON THE GROUND.
John Rennie:
Unfortunately,
as the eruption
would proceed,
the gigantic amount of
cinder and ash would be
piling up on their homes.
It was only a matter of a
few hours before many of
these structures
started to collapse.
 NARRATOR: OUTSIDE, THOSE
 WHO DO TRY TO ESCAPE
 SCRAMBLE TO STAY ABOVE
 THE FEET OF DEBRIS.
 BUT THEIR EFFORTS
 WOULD BE IN VAIN,
 THINGS GET MUCH WORSE.
 ON AUGUST 25, THE COLUMN
 OF ASH THAT'S BEEN SPEWING
 ROCK AND GAS FOR MORE THAN
 12 HOURS BECAME TOO HEVAY
 IN THE AIR TO
 SUPPORT ITSELF,
 AND SIMPLY COLLAPSES.
 IT FORMS AN AVALANCE
 OF SCORCHING GAS,
 ROCK AND ASH CALLED
 A PYROCLASTIC FLOW,
 OR SURGE.
 AT POMPEII, MANY VICTIMS
 LIKELY SUFFOCATE FOR
 SEVERAL MINUTES BEFORE
 KILLED FBY THE FLOW.
 BUT OVER AT HERCULANEUM,
 EIGHT MILES AWAY,
 RESIDENTS FACED AN EVEN
 MORE TERRIGYING FATE.
 THE PYROCLASTIC SURGES
 BARRELE THROUGH THE
 ANCIENT CITY AT EVEN
 HIGHER TEMPERATURES.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
This is a point at which
you can get a very clear
idea of the sheer scale of
the eruption.
This is all solidified
pyroclastic flow,
and most of it is
just what comes out of
Vesuvius.
But as you come down to
the level at which we're
standing, you find more
and more bits of building
material.
There's a bit of tile,
a bit of a brick,
then you see
a bit of wood.
And if you come over
here, here's more tiles,
here's a lovely
great beam,
and here is a column.
This is the base
of a column.
You can see it
disappearing downwards,
and it's almost
pointing back to where
it comes from.
It must've been part of
a colonnade up at the top
there.
So it shows how the flow
has brought down from the
city, scraped off a whole
layer of the city and just
chucked it down here.
Here's a beam, there's
a column, whoosh,
down toward the sea.
Charles Pellegrino: When
the first flow came down
through Herculaneum every
living thing in the city
died all the way down
to bacteria and viruses.
One of the great paradoxes
is that the hotter the
cloud was, it preserved
everything so we find
Herculaneum much better
preserved than Pompeii
where the temperatures
were a bit less.
It's amazing; we actually
find a city that was flash
frozen in time.
 NARRATOR: ALONG THE
 ANCIENT SHORELINE,
 VOLCANOLOGIST GIUSEPPE
 MASTROLORENZO AND
 ANTHROPOLOGIST PIER PAOLO
 PETRONE EXCAVATE THE
 BOATHOUSES.
 THEY'RE FINDING HUNDREDS
 OF VICTIMS OF THE 79 AD
 ERUPTION.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo: In
several years of research
we have tried to understand
how the people died,
so which was the effect
of the pyroclastic
surge on the
people and object,
in order to
define scenarios.
Pier Paolo Petrone:
This is a young woman,
she got a fetus
inside the pelvis,
so it was a
pregnant woman.
So the women are
what age, about?
16, 17, maybe?
Man: Maybe a little
bit more, maybe 18.
 NARRATOR: WITH NO
 PLACE ELSE TO GO,
 RESIDENTS GATHER IN THESE
 CAVERNOUS STRUCTURES ALONG
 THE SHORE.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
People looked for a place
of safety, and it's clear
that we find all the
skeletons in a place that
would be very safe in most
normal circumstances,
under well-built concrete
arches.
They are actually very
good bomb shelters.
You and I would
take refuge there.
 NARRATOR: BUT WHEN THE
 PYROCLASTIC FLOW COMES
 THROUGH, NOTHING
 CAN PROTECT THEM.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
It's very much like a
scene from the London
Underground during bombing
in the second world war,
or something like that.
They're desperately
taking refuge together.
 NARRATOR: THESE HUMAN
 REMAINS FROM 79 AD
 PROVIDES SCIENTISTS WITH
 CRITICAL CLUES ABOUT THE
 POWER OF THE
 PYROCLASTIC FLOW.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo: W
are in the waterfront area
of Herculaneum and here
there are the twelve water
front chambers with one of
the most dramatic evidence
of the tragedy that
occurred during the 79
eruption of Vesuvius.
Ciao, Pier Paulo.
Pier Paolo Petrone:
Buongiorno.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
All these chambers were
filled by the first
pyroclastic surge,
which was very hot and
caused the death of at
least 300 people, which
were recovered in these
chambers.
Pier Paolo
Petrone: Actually,
not one of them is showing
a voluntary reaction,
so we think they died
instantly due to the
very hot surge.
But we have some more
details just watching the
skeletons.
Not only the position
of the skeletons,
so they are just
frozen in death,
but also in the details of
the skulls, for instance,
so Giuseppe, here we
have this skull which is
blackened inside and with
some evident fractures,
just on the edges
here, over the skull,
which testified very
high temperatures.
So very probably this
skull exploded due to the
very high heat
of the surge.
 NARRATOR: THE EVIDENCE OF
 SUCH A VIOLENT AND RAPID
 DEATH IS A TERRIFYING
 WARNING TO RESIDENTS
 LIVING NEAR THE CRATER.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
The evidence from
Herculaneum are very
important in terms of
volcanic risk evaluation.
Pier Paolo Petrone: These
people were exposed to a
temperature exceeding
500 degrees centigrade.
So these victims testify
something very important,
that at this distance
from the volcano ,
there is no
possibility to survive,
even if the people
is sheltering inside
buildings.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
The only way to save the
people in case of an
eruption is a complete
evacuation of an area as
wide as 20 kilometers from
the volcano, because we
cannot make provisions
about the type
of eruption,
or the distance
at which thermal,
mechanical and other
dangerous effects will be
observed.
 NARRATOR: IF RESIDENTS
 DON'T HEED SCIENTISTS'
 WARNINGS, THEY COULD FACE
 THE SAME FATE AS THEIR
 ANCESTORS FROM
 HERCULANEUM.
Charles Pellegrino: They
died in mid sentence and
mid swallow of food at
1 200th of a second.
Faster than a person
could even flinch.
All the water in the flesh
instantly vaporized and
jetted out of the body
including the blood
boiling the brain with
enough force to crack the
skulls wide open.
And then this steam cooled
the ash and the air and it
instantly imploded
over the bones,
freezing the bones in
exactly those positions
that they had been in.
 NARRATOR: THE RESURFACING
 OF THESE 2000 YEAR OLD
 SKELETONS IS A CHILLING
 TESTAMENT TO WHAT CAN
 HAPPEN WHEN THE NEXT
 BIG ERUPTION COMES.
 BUT EVIDENCE FROM AN EVEN
 EARLIER ERUPTION IS ABOUT
 TO RAISE THE
 STAKES EVEN HIGHER.
 NARRATOR: WHEN VESUVIUS
 ERUPTS IN AUGUST OF 79 AD,
 IT DEVASTATES A
 FIVE-MILE WIDE AREA,
 INCLUDING THE CITIES OF
 POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM,
 IT ANNIHILATES THOUSANDS
 OF PEOPLE IN THE BLINK OF
 AN EYE.
 AND IT BURIES THE REGION
 IN AS MUCH AS 70 FEET OF
 DEBRIS.
 BUT THE 79 A-D ERUPTION
 WASN'T THE ONLY MAJOR,
 OR PLINIAN ERUPTION
 VESUVIUS HAS UNLEASHED.
 RECENT DISCOVERIES FROM
 A BRONZE AGE ERUPTION,
 NEARLY 4000 YEARS AGO,
 ARE FORCING SCIENTISTS TO
 RECONSIDER THE
 DANGER OF VESUVIUS.
John Rennie: Obviously,
ever since the discovery
of Pompeii, people had
known that Vesuvius could
be a very serious volcano,
but the full magnitude of
just how bad it could be
only really became clear
in recent years.
 NARRATOR: VOLCANOLOGIST
 GIUSEPPE MASTROLORENZO AND
 ANTHROPOLOGIST PIER
 PAOLO PETRONE FOUND TWO
 SKELETONS IN THE TOWN
 OF SAN PAOLO BEL SITO,
 ABOUT 10 MILES NORTHEAST
 OF THE VOLCANO.
 THESE SKELETONS WERE
 UNLIKE ANYTHING THEY'D
 EVER FOUND BEFORE.
Pier Paolo Petrone: The
two victims were a young
woman of about
nineteen years old,
as testified from the
morphology of the pelvis
and skull, and a male of
about forty-five years old.
 NARRATOR: EXCAVATING
 SKELETONS IS NOTHING NEW
 FOR LOCAL SCIENTISTS.
 THEY'VE UNCOVERED HUNDREDS
 OF SKELETONS FROM POMPEII
 AND HERCULANEUM
 UNCOVERED OVER THE YEARS.
 BUT UPON EXAMINATION,
 MASTROLORENZO AND PETRONE
 REALIZED THESE
 SKELETONS WERE UNIQUE.
 THEY WEREN'T FROM 79 AD,
 THEY WERE FROM 1780 BC.
Pier Paolo Petrone: This
is the skeleton of one of
the two victims,
a young woman,
she's just laying on one
side with both hands on
her face.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
These people were very
unlucky because they were
just in the focus of the
first phase of
the eruption.
So they were covered by
about one meter of pumice.
 NARRATOR: SCIENTISTS
 KNEW THIS ERUPTION,
 CALLED THE AVELLINO
 ERUPTION, HAD OCCURED,
 BUT THEY HAD NEVER FOUND
 EVIDENCE OF ITS IMPACT ON
 THE CIVILIZATION
 AT THAT TIME.
 AND THE STORY THESE
 SKELETONS TELL IS EVEN
 MORE TERRYIFYING THAN THE
 ONE TOLD BY THE VICTIMS OF
 79 AD.
Pier Paolo Petrone: The
two human victims had no
time to escape, so they
just died by suffocation
at the very beginning
of the eruption.
 NARRATOR: PETRONE AND
 MASTROLORENZO SPEND A
 DECADE SEARCHING FOR OTHER
 CLUES FROM THIS ERUPTION.
 SLOWLY, THE EVIDENCE OF
 A PREHISTORIC POPULATION
 COMES TO THE SURFACE.
Pier Paolo Petrone: About
fifteen kilometers far
from Vesuvius, was found
a complete prehistoric
Bronze Age village, just
abandoned from people
leaving everything inside
huts, even animals.
Then, three years ago,
were found thousands of
footprints of people
fleeing away during the
eruption in a mass exodus
about some ten thousand
people.
 NARRATOR: MANY PEOPLE
 ESCAPE TO SAFETY,
 BUT THE ERUPTION
 DEVASTATES THE LAND.
Pier Paolo Petrone: In the
excavations of these last
years, a couple of
discoveries show that some
people tried to
rebuild some huts.
But due to environmental
degradation,
reoccupation was
impossible at least for a
period of two centuries,
as far as 70 kilometers
from Vesuvius.
 NARRATOR: BUT WHAT'S EVEN
 MORE ASTOUNDING IS THE
 LOCATION OF THE
 DEVASTATED VILLAGE,
 THEY WERE LOCATED
 WITHIN WHAT IS NOW THE
 METROLPOLITAN
 AREA OF NAPLES,
 AN AREA PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
 TO BE SAFE FROM THE WRATH
 OF VESUVIUS.
John Rennie: After
the discovery of these
remains, it was very clear
that Vesuvius actually
could produce an eruption
big enough to extend out
to Naples itself, which
meant that the volcano is
potentially much more
destructive today than we
ever would have thought.
 NARRATOR: TODAY, THREE
 MILLION PEOPLE OCCUPY THE
 GREATER NAPLES AREA.
 IF ANOTHER ERUPTION LIKE
 THE BRONZE AGE ERUPTION
 OCCURS, THEY COULD FACE
 UNIMAGINABLE DANGER.
Pier Paolo Petrone: The
Avellino eruption should
be considered as a
worst-case scenario for a
future eruption.
John Rennie: If
Vesuvius were to erupt,
a very significantly it
would be an extraordinary
disaster with potentially
millions of people at risk
and a bar minimum hundreds
of thousands if not
millions of people being
left homeless probably the
disruption of the entire
Italian economy which
means the seventh largest
economy in the world would
suddenly be struck down.
And of course rippling
effects that would reach
out through the
rest of Europe.
 NARRATOR: MODERN
 CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS HAVE
 BURIED MUCH OF THE
 PREHISTORIC EVIDENCE.
 BUT WHAT HAS BEEN
 UNCOVERED GIVES SCIENTISTS
 A CLEARER PICTURE OF THE
 POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES
 SHOULD THE NEXT BIG
 ERUPTION RESEMBLE THE
 BRONZE AGE ERUPTION.
Pier Paolo Petrone: A
catastrophic event like
the Avellino one should
cause total devastation,
at least within the 10
kilometers far from the
volcano.
So we know that the impact
force of the surges is
strong enough to let
buildings to collapse,
all the population
will die,
even within a large part
of the Neapolitan area.
 NARRATOR: BACK AT THE
 VESUVIUS OBSERVATORY,
 MASTROLORENZO IS ANALYZING
 THE SAMPLES OF VOLCANIC
 ROCK HE COLLECTED
 FROM THE CRATER.
 THEY WILL HELP DETERMINE
 THE TIMELINE OF EVENTS
 JUST BEFORE AN ERUPTION
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
This is a thin section
of the rock we took
yesterday.
It's a very thin
section of the pumice.
 NARRATOR: HE AND HIS
 COLLEAGUE LUCIA PAPPALARDO
 USE A MICROSCOPE AND
 DIGITAL CAMERA TO TRANSMIT
 IMAGES TO THEIR COMPUTER.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
She's taking a photograph
of a thin section of
pumice erupted in 79 AD
eruption, in a very early
phase of that eruption.
The photographs show us
many evidences of the
crystals and the
texture of the rocks.
 NARRATOR: WITHIN THE ROCKS
 ARE TINY CRYSTALS FILLED
 WITH VOLCANIC GASES.
 THESE CRYSTALS ARE
 ESSENTIAL TO DETERMINING
 HOW QUICKLY THE MAGMA
 RISES FROM THE CHAMBER TO
 THE SURFACE.
 THE KEY IS THE FREQUENCY
 OF SMALL CRYSTALS.
 IF THERE ARE FEW
 SMALL CRYSTALS,
 IT COULD MEAN THAT ONCE
 THE ERUPTION BEGINS,
 THERE WILL BE VERY
 LITTLE TIME TO REACT.
Giuseppe
Mastrolorenzo: Well,
these pictures are
really surprising,
because we see that
there are very few small
crystals, and this
indicates that the
processes of magma rising
from the magma chamber to
the surface was
incredibly fast.
 NARRATOR: THE FAST ASCENT
 OF MAGMA MEANS THAT PEOPLE
 COULD HAVE LESS THAN ONE
 HOUR TO ESCAPE ONCE THE
 MAGMA STARTS RISING.
 AND NAPLES COULD BE IN
 THE PATH OF DESTRUCTION.
 NOW, SCIENTISTS AND CIVIL
 PROTECTION OFFICIALS MUST
 CONFRONT A SCENARIO IN
 WHICH MILLIONS PEOPLE
 COULD BE ANNHILATED IN
 A FRACTION OF A SECOND.
 NARRATOR: ALTHOUGH
 SCIENTISTS CANNOT SAY WHEN
 THE NEXT ERUPTION OF
 VESUVIUS WILL OCCUR,
 THEY CAN SAY WITH SOME
 CERTAINTY THAT IT WILL BE
 DESTRUCTIVE.
 VOLCANOLOGIST GIUSEPPE
 MASTROLORENZO BELIEVES THE
 CURRENT MAGMA CHAMBER IS
 COMPARABLE IN SIZE TO WHAT
 IT WAS BEFORE THE LAST
 TWO MAJOR ERUPTIONS.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
Analysis of thin sections
indicated that gas was
trapped at a depth of
about 8 km.
This depth is exactly the
depth of the magma chamber
revealed by the
seismic topography.
 NARRATOR: THERE'S
 CURRENTLY ENOUGH MAGMA TO
 PRODUCE POSSIBLY HUNDREDS
 OF MAJOR ERUPTIONS IN THE
 FUTURE.
Menke: If you go to
Vesuvius today and you
stand around the crater
you see steam coming up.
That's an indication that
there's still heat under
the ground.
There is magma there.
Tens of cubic km of magma.
There will be a time when
that magma comes to the
surface of the earth.
 NARRATOR: WITH THE
 MAGMA BENEATH THE CRATER
 CONSTANTLY BUILDING,
 NAPLES AND THE SURROUNDING
 TOWNS MUST PREPARE.
 THE WORST CASE SCENARIO
 WOULD SEND PYROCLASTIC
 FLOWS BARRELING
 THROUGH THE REGION.
 ANYONE STILL IN THE AREA
 WOULDN'T STAND A CHANCE.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
They don't even have time
to think about it, if they
encounter a pyroclastic flow.
It comes so fast, and what
the scientists have shown
is that the heat just
comes straight over them,
and their limbs instantly
retract into this pugilist
position.
No brain process
is needed.
Woosh, you go,
and you've gone.
Charles Pellegrino: You
do not want to be anywhere
near, in or around Naples
if a surge cloud is coming
toward you.
You can't outrun it, it is
coming at you at 200 miles
an hour.
 NARRATOR: AND GETTING
 PEOPLE TO FLEE THE AREA
 COULD CREATE CHAOS
 IN A MATTER OF HOURS.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
I think the problem with
evacuation, as the
authorities are well
aware, are
absolutely gigantic.
Can people physically get
out of the area without
all the roads
being blocked?
Anyone who's travelled
around this area knows
that the roads are
permanently blocked,
you have a buildup of
traffic for a mile.
What would happen
in an eruption?
 NARRATOR: CIVIL PROTECTION
 OFFICERS MUST CONFRONT THE
 QUESTION OF HOW TO PREPARE
 FOR THE INEVITABILITY.
Bertolaso: We are dealing
with the most dangerous
volcano in the world.
We know that since the
beginning of the first
symptoms, 'til
the eruption,
there should be at least
one week time span.
In Italy we can manage in
case of emergency all the
different situations.
Everybody has on the
table their instruction,
in case of an
emergency situation,
we are very confident
within three,
four days we can evacuate
all those to be evacuated.
 NARRATOR: BUT SOME
 SCIENTISTS HAVE
 THEIR DOUBTS.
Raia: We have 3 million
people living all around
the area from small towns
just around Vesuvius
including the
city of Naples.
How do we move all
these people away?
With a highly densely
populated area with small
roads there's no way
to move these people.
 NARRATOR: THE EVCAUATION
 STRATEGY IS DESIGNED FOR A
 SUB-PLINIAN ERUPTION, ONE
 CONSIDERABLY SMALLER THAN
 THE ONES UNLEASHED
 IN 1780 BC AND 79 AD.
 BUT THERE IS NO WAY TO
 KNOW HOW BIG THE NEXT
 EXPLOSION WILL BE.
Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo:
The present emergency plan
is based on a
sub-plinian eruption,
which means just that
just six hundred thousand
people must be evacuated -
not three million people,
the difference could be
the major cause of the
tragedy.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
What happens in New
Orleans with Katrina?
The human chaos caused
by natural catastrophe is
absolutely daunting,
and up to this point no
government we know is capable
of dealing with them.
We need to get smarter if
we're going to rescue people.
 NARRATOR: AS THE WORLD
 WITNESSED WITH THE RECENT
 EARTHQUAKE A FEW
 HOURS NORTH OF NAPLES,
 NATURAL DISASTERS CAN
 DECIMATE AN AREA IN
 JUST SECONDS.
John Rennie: The recent
earthquake in Italy is
unfortunately, probably,
kind of a preview of what
we might expect in
the event of a serious
volcanic eruption
of Vesuvius, again,
in the future.
Remember, it's very
likely that there would be
earthquakes of some
severity that might
actually be leading up
to the volcanic eruption
itself.
So, we would see all that
kind of earthquake type of
damage, then capped off
by even more destruction
caused by the
eruption itself,
with the attendant loss
of homes, loss of lives.
It would be a scale of
disaster in Europe that I
don't know that we've
ever really seen before.
 NARRATOR: ITALIAN
 AUTHORITIES HAVE
 DESIGNATED 18 TOWNS AROUND
 VESUVIUS AS RED-ZONE,
 OR HIGH RISK AREAS, IF
 THE VOLCANO SHOWS SIGNS OF
 UNREST, THEY WILL FOCUS
 THEIR EVACUATION EFFORTS
 ON THOSE PLACES.
 BUT NAPLES IS NOT LOCATED
 WITHIN THE RED-ZONE AREA.
 RED ZONES ARE DRAWN AROUND
 MUNICIPAL BOUNDARIES,
 CRITICS CONTEND NAPLES
 MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE
 EVACUATION STRATEGY,
 WHEN THE PYROCLASTIC FLOW
 COMES, THEY ARGUE, IT
 WON'T STOP SIMPLY BECAUSE
 IT HAS REACHED THE
 BORDER OF A TOWN.
De Vivo: In some the red
zone is 7 kilometers from
the Vesuvius and some of
the red is 12 kilometers.
They should have drawn
a circumference around
Vesuvius at 11 kilometers.
 NARRATOR: DESPITE
 THE INHERENT DANGER,
 MORE AND MORE PEOPLE
 MOVE TO THE AREA.
 CONSTRUCTION ALONG THE
 SLOPES OF THE MOUNTAIN AND
 AROUND THE EDGES OF
 THE RED ZONE CONTINUES,
 SEEMINGLY UNDETERRED.
DE VIVO: One of the
biggest problems is the
largest civic hospital
of Southern Italy,
which is located 7
kilometers from the
Vesuvius center, the so
called, Hospital del Mar,
The Sea Hospital.
 NARRATOR: THE HOSPITAL
 SITS JUST FOUR MILES FROM
 THE MOUNTAIN'S CRATER...
 BUT IT'S NOT WITHIN
 THE RED ZONE AREA.
 AUTHORITIES DEFEND
 THEIR DECISION.
BERTOLASO: The
L'Hospitale del Mare,
which is under
construction on the
eastern part of Naples,
and is outside the red
area, and is the
only hospital,
which is under
construction,
which is built following
all the instructions and
criteria to build a
hospital within a seismic area.
 NARRATOR: BUT NOT
 EVERYONE AGREES.
DE VIVO: I mean, to put
the Sea Hospital directly
in an area, which
is in a risk area,
is a criminal decision
for the future generation.
 EVEN EFFORTS TO PAY
 FAMILIES TO MOVE OUT OF
 THE RED ZONE HAVE
 BEEN UNSUCCESSFUL.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
It's rather sweet that the
government offers people
something like 30, 000
Euros to move out
of their houses.
Of course this is
completely out of sync
with the value of
property in this area.
Real estate is
very valuable,
and offering people 30,000
is absolutely not enough
to get them to budge.
 NARRATOR: BUT AN EVEN
 GREATER PROBLEM MAY BE THE
 POTENTIAL FALSE ALARMS
 THAT COULD OCCUR BEFORE
 THE REAL ERUPTION BEGINS.
 SOME FEAR RESIDENTS
 WILL BECOME RESISTANT TO
 EVACUATION.
Charles Pellegrino: There
will be false alarms.
Probably the first time
the people are told we
need to get ready
to evacuate,
because we're building
up to a major eruption,
the volcano will rumble,
there will be some
earthquakes and maybe some
destruction of property
and then nothing happens.
Similar to what happened
when we had an earthquake
in AD 62 it did a lot
of damage to Pompeii and
Herculaneum, they
reconstructed,
they had earthquakes
leading up to the big
eruption although they
didn't really know what
was coming, but if
that happened today,
we'd have a few
earthquakes, false alarms,
people get used to
patching up their houses
and they may stop
listening to the
volcanologists.
Bertolaso: This is
one of our problems,
the so-called
false positive.
I mean that you
evacuate the area,
and then nothing happens.
You may be successful in
evacuating even half a
million people, even
in four or five days.
But then if
nothing happens,
they will start
spontaneously to getting
back to home.
 NARRATOR: DESPITE THE
 SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY'S
 WARNINGS, AREA RESIDENTS
 SEEM UNDAUNTED BY THE
 POTENTIAL DANGER.
 THEY ARE DEEPLY ROOTED IN
 THE NEIGHBORHOODS WHERE
 GENERATIONS OF THEIR
 FAMILIES HAVE LIVED.
Raia: Neapolitans have
a very I would say
fatalistic attitude toward
what's going to happen in
the future.
They know rationally but
they don't understand
emotionally.
 NARRATOR: INSTEAD,
 NEAPOLITANS LIVE WITH A
 FORCE OF NATURE THAT
 THEY CANNOT CONTROL.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill:
Vesuvius is a symbol of
how nature is
actually something,
still something
bigger than us.
Humans have kind of got
the idea into their heads
that they can occupy the
earth wherever they want,
and the government
can solve problems.
Vesuvius is not a problem
that can be solved,
it's not going to go away.
It will erupt
sooner or later.
 NARRATOR: WHILE THE WORLD
 WONDERS WHEN THAT DAY WILL
 COME, SCIENTISTS
 OBSESSIVELY MONITOR THE
 VOLCANO, THEY KNOW THAT
 PREVENTING AN ERUPTION IS
 NOT AN OPTION.
 INSTEAD, THE BEST THEY CAN
 DO IS HOPE TO DETECT IT
 BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
