Biggest Volcanic Eruptions | Mega Disasters | Free Documentary

[Music] volcanic eruptions are one of the most powerful forces on earth from spectacular lava fountains to deadly explosions they can bury entire cities under superheated clouds of ash and gas or turn quiet rivers into seedling torrents of mud and debris scientists are struggling to understand these unpredictable time bombs we were taken by surprise by what turned out to be an unprecedented event we all circled the globe profiling some of the most significant eruptions of our time each more devastating than the last each leading to a potential mega eruption that could change the world as we know it volcanic eruptions are dramatic reminders that our world is a living planet the destructive force is four billion years old a force that demands respect volcanoes combine the beauty and the beast the power to create and to destroy from the very beginning they've served a vital function releasing heat gas and minerals from deep beneath the earth's crust these by-products proved vital to human life creating the earth's atmosphere if volcanoes did not exist neither would we to me they're one of the most beautiful things you can ever witness but to the people who live under them they're the most terrifying and destructive thing you can ever witness cameraman jeff mackley's mission to film the world's volcanoes comes with risks on one mountain he avoided death by moments when a lethal mixture of hot gas and ash just missed him there was a loud roar like a freight train and a pyroclastic flow came down the valley that we'd just been in so yeah another five minutes either way it would have been curtains for us mackley risks his life to record volcanoes beauty others risk theirs to record their power many of us have experiences that could either have gone one way or the other depending upon just just something small that happened in the past 60 years volcanic eruptions have killed at least 27 scientists even so their quest for knowledge continues on average between 50 and 60 volcanoes erupt every year about 20 are erupting at any given moment all are vents in the earth's surface most take place within the ring of fire an area around the pacific basin where tectonic plates collide allowing molten rock or magma to be released thick magma loaded with gas triggers explosive eruptions thinner magma with less gas is less volatile to compare and categorize eruptions scientists have developed the volcanic explosivity index or vei scale each notch up the scale means a higher ash cloud more rejected material and greater explosive energy the events profiled here begin with a non-explosive eruption and peak with a planet-altering super eruption one that experts say will eventually happen [Music] hawaii is a stunning tropical paradise but under the brilliant sand and lush forests simmers a cauldron of tremendous heat and violence this is the site of one of the most spectacular volcanic creations on the planet all of the hawaiian islands are volcanoes built over 70 million years by a powerful geological formation called appropriately a hot spot the hot spot is a narrow zone which has an excess amount of heat in it the heat rises and near relatively near the earth's surface this heat melts the rocks and then that melted rock erupts as lava february 1983 kilauea on the big island of hawaii sends lava fountains 80 meters into the air because the magma is thin and doesn't contain much gas the eruption is not explosive but it's still dangerous for seven years the eruption continues the lava inches forward slow enough to outrun but totally unstoppable in february 1990 it reaches the fishing village of kalapana hundreds are evacuated it became a very painful experience actually to watch this because it was just creeping through town you know every week or so another blocks worth of houses were gone residents have time to pack up their belongings and in some cases their entire homes others can only watch as the lava destroys their past we moved out that afternoon and two days later our home was engulfed by flames and we were able to watch the lava come into our by yard the entire village is gone buried under more than 15 meters of molten rock behind me is the eastern edge of what used to be the town of kalapana in 1990 there were about 150 homes out here and they've been buried by about five stories worth of lava despite the hardships caused by the volcano some hawaiians see beyond their personal tragedy they respect the power and the beauty of the lava a force they worship as a goddess named pele we don't really resent or feel like it was a lost for us because we we know that pele this is her land her aina and she can come anytime she wants to go anywhere she wants to the hawaiians were unable to stop kilauea's enormous lava flow but 4 800 kilometers away an entire nation took a desperate stand when a volcano threatened one of their towns on january 23 1973 the eldfell volcano erupts on the icelandic island of a slow-moving lava flow more than 10 meters high threatens to engulf the village of vesmania the majority of the village is evacuated but a dedicated team stays behind to confront the formidable force over five months crews spray approximately six million cubic meters of sea water onto the lava flows nearly four million cubic meters of molten lava is converted into solid rock the village is saved such a herculean effort is impossible with kilauea the flow is simply too great the lava that destroyed kalapana plows on pouring into the sea in a spectacular collision where the lava goes into the ocean it makes one of probably the most beautiful places on the flow field but it's also one of the most dangerous below the solidifying lava unstable sand is prone to sudden and violent collapse all of a sudden all this hot lava is on the surface it just snaps off the ocean rushes in and it creates huge explosions that send gigantic plumes of material up in the air and they cover maybe three or four football fields in area sending out rocks the size of like soccer balls or basketballs all over the area this impressive display is a glimpse into prehistoric times when volcanoes first formed land the same process is still happening today it builds new beaches and then these beaches the lava then can flow over and it builds that out a sequential set of beaches and then lava flow and beach lava flow and it builds out a new piece of land that we call a lava delta since 1983 kilauea has displaced almost 200 families and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property in that same time it's added more than 200 hectares of land to the island continuing the 70 million year process that created all of hawaii it's a stunning example of how a volcano creates and destroys at the same time its slowly oozing magma is a permanent threat but rarely produces a violent explosion in our next event thicker magma trapped in a geological powder keg triggers a much more explosive volcanic eruption lethal white hot clouds of gas descend on thousands of people wiping out an entire caribbean capital and later in our mega disaster scenario a super volcano strikes the heart of europe demolishing a major city and casting a shadow over the entire planet the stunning lava fountains and flows of kilauea on the big island of hawaii both create and destroy but rarely are lethal but there are much more explosive and dangerous volcanoes ones that spew out deadly gas and ash clouds one such volcano ravaged half a nation and sent 19 to their graves [Music] montserrat is a lush and tranquil caribbean retreat but in 1995 the sufia hills volcano quiet for nearly 400 years rumbles back to life over the next two years multiple eruptions shoot ash thousands of feet into the air the capital of plymouth is evacuated twice each time the residents return hoping the volcano's rage is over on june 25th 1997 those hopes are buried at 1pm a giant ash cloud erupts nearly 10 kilometers high in the next 30 minutes close to 800 degree mixtures of ash and rock race downhill at more than 100 kilometers an hour the lethal clouds are called pyroclastic flows roy daly lives three kilometers from the volcano he hears the eruption and rushes outside to see the flow racing by him less than 50 meters away started to feel some heat and the darkness started to rule over the wood so i got in my car and i sped away like crazy i drove on top the hill away from the pyroclastic flow the force of the thick mixture of gas ash and rocks flattens everything in its path roy watches helplessly as entire villages are destroyed he's managed to escape the pyroclastic flows but he's not out of danger yet i was scared to death i thought i was going to live it was so dark that if you put your hands to your face you couldn't see them hot ash raining on you real hot ash i felt scared i couldn't move i couldn't see i couldn't breathe properly so of course i felt i was gonna die but i was hoping i didn't die and i didn't roy is finally evacuated by helicopter but not everyone is able to escape dr sue lockland is the director of the montserrat volcano observatory and a witness to the eruption the maximum speed of pyroclastic flows on that day could have been in excess of 150 miles per hour even though people saw it coming there was very little they could do to make their escape the nearly 8 million cubic meters of flow covers thousands of square kilometers of land damages or demolishes more than 100 homes and destroys the island's only airport other than one ferry service monserrat is cut off from the rest of the world but the volcano is not finished over the next four months eruptions and pyroclastic flows continue to devastate the island we had over 70 explosions in one month sometimes there were four explosions a day each explosion generated a mushroom cloud which rose rapidly to great heights above the volcano each explosion generated pyroclastic flows which spread in all directions around the volcano you can see behind me the impact on gage's mountain of surges as they came over the mountain during one of these explosions and singed and burned all the vegetation there the pyroclastic flow's toll on the island's natural resources is immense the human toll is 19 lives the cause of this violent and tragic eruption lies deep below the lush island the same process that created this tropical paradise threatens to destroy it here the north and south american tectonic plates collide with and plunge below the caribbean plate in a process called subduction the subduction takes place at about 130 kilometers depth that's about 80 miles below the surface of the earth as the plate goes down parts of it melt and this forms magma and the magma works its way up to the surface over many thousands of years unlike kilauea the sofia hills volcano produces thick magma over thousands of years it forms the classic steep volcanic cone called a stratovolcano the magma contains a variety of gases all under intense pressure it slowly rises until it reaches the earth's surface when the pressure is released just like a bottle of champagne the gases suddenly expand and the volcano violently erupts thousands of kilometers away in barrie italy scientists are studying suffria hills most lethal side effect the purpose of these experiments is to understand the dynamics of pyroclastic flows so to be prepared for the next events dr deleno and his team load about 200 kilos of actual volcanic ash from mount vesuvius into a cylinder pressurized gas creates an explosion that ejects the ash the volcanologists track the height direction and density of the ash with a variety of instruments and high-speed cameras the models here are big enough to be accurately scaled up to actual events something that could not be achieved in a lab the experiments have determined that both the amount of magma and the force applied to it are critical in the creation of pyroclastic flows next researchers will match the test with the topography of specific volcanoes they'll then be able to pinpoint specific areas where pyroclastic flows are likely to strike local authorities can evacuate those areas prior to an eruption potentially saving many lives but tragically for those in the path of stratovolcanoes like sufria hills pyroclastic clothes and asheville aren't the only threats every year between 1200 and 2000 millimeters of rain fall on montserrat heavy rains run down the channels created by the pyroclastic flows transforming them into massive mudslides called lahars most of this debris that we see around us is caused by lahars washing all the pyroclastic flow debris further down the hill and progressively burying plymouth under all this mud and boulders lahars have buried so much of plymouth that the city has been permanently abandoned they were the volcano's final salvo in a brutal one-sided war the sufria hills volcano destroyed more than a thousand homes left more than half of the island uninhabitable and destroyed the nation's capital about forty five hundred people remain on the once thriving island of twelve thousand it was sad to see people just having to go buy droves out of mantra but it was understandable because these people lost their properties it was a pure strength why i stayed here i mean you had no place to go no place to live with families and friends being shocked up still in schools and churches it was difficult and it was very sad but the volcano has also created new opportunities that have helped revitalize the island volcano related tourism is rising roy daly owns and operates a tour bus business people are anxious to see a live volcano i don't think there's any place on the face of the earth that you could see a live volcano from approximately one mile from it bubbling and rolling and walking right though hills multiple pyroplastic flows and lahars were lethal and destructive its eruptions never exceeded a three on the volcanic explosivity index but when a vei-5 fires a single 24 megaton blast it destroys thousands of acres of land and kills dozens of people and later scientists explore the potential for a super eruption one unseen in modern times one that could kill millions the pyroclastic flows and lahars of the sufia hills volcano on montserrat destroyed the island's capital killed 19 and changed the nation's landscape and thousands of lives forever 1980 america's pacific northwest experienced a different and rare type of eruption that acted like a giant cannon blast flattening entire forests and killing dozens [Music] the cascades are an 1100 kilometer long majestic range stretching from canada to northern california hundreds of thousands of hikers and skiers find refuge and adventure here but in the spring of 1980 one of the cascades crown jewels begins to fracture in march small earthquakes ripple deep below the peak of mounts and helens after more than 120 years of slumber the mountain is awakening this seismicity is typical of volcanoes when they reawaken because as molten rock tries to push its way up underneath the volcano it makes a lot of noise in terms of shouldering aside the the hard rock that makes the edifice of the volcano itself on may 17 keith rongholm a geophysics graduate student intrigued by the mountains activity decides to get a closer look mount st helens was erupting about every five or eight days i had gone to a place called bare meadow to try to get a view of one of these small summit eruptions ronholm gets far more than he bargained for at 8 32 on the morning of may 18 a magnitude 5.1 earthquake rips through the volcano's north side 2.8 billion cubic meters of earth falls at speeds of up to 257 kilometers an hour i was reading a book in in my my truck when i heard some people yelling and i looked over at the mountain and the entire north side of the mountain was sliding down the earth's movement releases the enormous pressure holding the magma inside the volcano a 24 megaton blast over 1800 times more powerful than the hiroshima atomic bomb shatters the north face of the mountain the blast is unusual in that it doesn't shoot straight up as most eruptions do this is a rare lateral blast slamming a huge cloud of rocks trees and ash approximately 180 degrees out from the mountain there was a puff of dark gray churning ash and within 10 10 15 seconds that that ash had expanded out and it covered the entire mountain all of this was happening silently and it was no noise to reinforce my my flight response i was 10 miles away and you don't at least initially feel like something's going to hurt you from from 10 miles away so i stood there and i took pictures i was fascinated by watching this event as the huge cloud of debris races over the two ridges between the volcano and ron holm at 483 kilometers an hour keith suddenly realizes he's in serious danger as i'm driving out i took one last picture over my shoulder and it's a little motion blurred but i couldn't take time to to frame it or or stop because i was driving and i remember looking back at the little parking area realizing that i was the last person to leave and thinking maybe i'd waited a little bit too long because this cloud was rushing towards me luckily for ron holm the strongest part of the blast heads north and northwest the portion that's heading north east directly towards him has less energy allowing him to escape down the mountain the lateral blast spews ash and gas up to a height of 24 kilometers less than an hour later a vertical eruption sends more ash skyward into this grim scene flies jess hageman with the washington army national guard most of the trees were blown over uh by the eruption and we're talking about 14 15 miles downstream of of mount st helens the whole landscape was changed made you feel like like sort of a gnat flying around the universe because in comparison to the size of the eruption it was it was amazing amazing and horrific 800 degree pyroclastic flows race down the steep flanks at up to 129 kilometers an hour in some places they are 37 meters thick in the early hours of the disaster the enormity of the destruction to the landscape is impossible to comprehend but it only takes one sobering moment for jess hageman to realize the human toll it was on this ridge right straight ahead of us here that we found the first two survivors in the blast area and that turned out to be jim scamanki and we eventually were able to pick those two people up leondy died in the hospital after we got him there but jim is still alive and survived rescuers find a handful of stunned survivors but the eruption kills 57 mostly campers and tourists nine hours after its start the eruption ends scientists struggle to comprehend the enormous scope of the event before the eruption mounts and helen stood at 2949 metres tall now it's 401 meters shorter the blast destroyed enough trees to build 300 000 houses thousands of logs still litter spirit lake five kilometers from the summit the volcano shot out more than 508 million tons of ash that spread across the entire us in three days two days after the eruption geologists get their first close look at the desolation it was like walking on the moon i have never seen anything like it this entire area which is 600 square kilometers or 230 square miles was totally devastated there wasn't a living thing in that entire area not an insect or a bird or an animal was only one color and it was this gray color of the deposits the ground was covered with hot rocks and there were fumes and hot gases coming out of the ground all over the place [Music] in the months following the eruption teams of experts carefully study every facet of the mountain one oddity of mounts and helens was that some people heard the eruption as far away as canada but eyewitnesses like keith rongholm just 16 kilometers away heard nothing because of the way the temperature structure in the atmosphere gets cooler with height that the sound waves from explosions are bent away from the surface of the earth and when they reach the stratosphere and the temperature again increases with height they're bent back down so no one between six and sixty miles from mount st helens heard the may 18th eruption since 1980 the mountain has experienced tens of thousands of small earthquakes and numerous minor eruptions most significantly since 2004 the volcano has been continuously erupting lava creating a giant lava dome that is still growing today it's volcanologists like rick lahousen's job to find ways to monitor all of this activity all we needed was a way to get our instruments out there very quickly without putting people on the ground in harm's way and yet still be able to monitor changes in the eruption so what we came up with is this stainless steel superstructure which kind of looks like a daddy long leg spider so we kind of call them spiders this is a gps antenna which receives timing signals from satellites and lets us locate exactly where this is the signals go into the computer system and then the data come out at the request from computers back in the office and are transmitted out through this antenna with the securely attached to a chopper it's time to head into the belly of the beast as they approach the crater the new lava dome is visible spewing out sulfur dioxide gas and steam this is proof that magma is reaching the surface with the potential to build to another eruption the most dangerous moment for rake and his pilot comes as they place the spider on the lava dome this close to the crater floor exploding rocks or a sudden burst of steam could easily kill them operating with the precision of surgeons the men carefully placed the spider directly on top of the lava dome within seconds the device begins gathering and transmitting data at the cascades volcano observatory in vancouver washington lahouzen analyzes the spider's digital camera images time-lapse photography shows the lava dome's formidable growth what's really phenomenal about this is how much rock is coming out of the ground it's taller than the empire state building it's coming up at five meters per day more than 200 meters across and it's right here in our backyard no conclusions have been drawn yet about the lava dome's rapid growth geologists warn that an eruption similar to the 1980 event is possible but unlikely they are certain however that future eruptions of some sort will occur whatever its future the mountain's recent past continues to reverberate today especially for those who are there it's just an amazing event to witness that we normally think of the earth as being a very static stable environment that we that doesn't change but when you get to watch a volcanic eruption and you watch a giant piece of the earth slide away followed by this dynamic churning ash cloud that flattens uh tens of square miles of forest you realize how powerful nature can be and how powerful geologic forces can be manson helen's vei5 lateral blast destroyed a massive amount of land and killed 57 people just one notch up the scale a vei6 volcano kills hundreds when its huge eruption is followed by a long series of deadly side effects and later scientists revealed the unthinkable effects of a mega eruption that they guarantee will happen sometime in the future the vei-5 lateral blast eruption at mounts and helens flattened 600 square kilometers of land and killed 57 people but there's one volcano that's in a class by itself it killed hundreds afflicted millions and affected the entire planet its eruption was just the first in a series of tragic events that went on for days months and years that continue to this day [Music] luzon is the largest of the philippine islands it's home to 56 million people the capital city of manila and mount pinatubo for centuries thousands have lived on and around the mountain harvest rice and other crops from its fertile soil what many locals didn't know or believe is that the mountain is a volcano even most experts who knew it was thought it was inactive on june 9th 1991 the mountain erupts for the first time in more than 500 years eruptions earthquakes pyroclastic flows and ash batter the island day and night geologist dr kelvin rodolfo arrives four days later the amount of ashes are falling so thickly you couldn't see any more than 20 feet there were pieces the size of chicken legs that were landing on us on june 15th a massive eruption spews five cubic kilometers of volcanic debris 35 kilometers high the top of the mountain collapses triggering a series of large earthquakes rodolfo is one of thousands trapped in the city of a longer pole 33 kilometers from pinatubo i was terrified continually during the eruption every three minutes or so there was a noticeable tremor one of the magnitude that would cause you impulsively to want to run outside of a building but outside the scene is equally terrifying reddish lightning was darting horizontally above people and the claps of thunder were practically simultaneous with with the lightning this intracloud lightning is caused by static electricity in the ash cloud it's seldom dangerous because it strikes horizontally instead of vertically still fear of the conditions outside stops many locals from sweeping the ash off their roofs something that will have fatal consequences on the same day as the eruption a typhoon strikes luzon the heavy rains mix with the ash since ash consists of fine particles of rock and minerals adding water turns it into a cement-like substance for those with several centimeters of ash on their roofs the mixture is a deadly one the passing typhoon saturated the ash with water making it a lot heavier causing roofs to fall in and pull the walls of houses in after them as if that isn't enough vast pyroclastic flows fill the valleys around pinatubo with debris once again the typhoon turns a volcanic by-product into a lethal weapon [Music] lahars form when a large amount of debris rapidly mixes with a huge amount of water the powerful mass churns downstream destroying anything and anyone unlucky enough to be caught in their path if you imagine a bulldozer traveling perhaps uh 15 miles per hour hitting the substructure of a bridge the bridge is taken out and that's the impact that that large rafted boulders had after nine nightmarish hours the eruptions end more than 300 people are dead and tens of thousands are homeless as bad as things are they could have been much worse in the months prior to the eruption locals reported seismic activity ongoing scientific monitoring confirmed the reports guided by experts who pointed out specific high-risk zones officials evacuated more than 58 000 people in the days and hours leading up to the eruption prior to the eruption we had made maps that uh anticipated where the tephra would fog and that depended on the seasonal winds but in still another deadly development the typhoon changed the wind direction areas that had been considered safe were inundated with a deadly mix of tephra or ash and rain that crushed homes and the people in them as thousands begin the massive cleanup the volcano's effects become global one month after the eruption the huge ash cloud circles the earth in the upper atmosphere sulfur dioxide is converted into sulfuric acid aerosols they reflect the sun's radiation away from the earth cooling the entire planet's surface by one degree the effects on the earth's atmosphere will last more than two years back in the philippines the volcano's after effects continue in the three months following the eruption heavy rains trigger more than 200 lahars as time progressed and the uh the flows eroded deeper and deeper into the lahars the channels got larger and larger and became much more efficient conduits for the slurries to flow down to help the hundreds of thousands of people in harm's way lookouts are stationed upriver when they sign a lahar they radio priests like father nestor tayek who ring their church bells in warning the bell sounds would be heard by the community any time of the night like an alarm a warning warning be prepared lahari scott but once again a twist of fate conspires against the people of luzon in october 1995 another large typhoon strikes the island and lookouts are put on alert unfortunately the heavy rains that triggered the lahars were not yet loaded with sediment when they passed this watch point consequently the lookouts radio that nothing but flood water is coming down the mountain but as the water runs down the channel it erodes a lot of loose material bulking up the lahar into a mixture estimated at 80 sediment and only 20 water the larger the percentage of sediment the faster and more powerful the villaha it strikes with incredible force it was making this noise this sound just like rampaging horses it was coming closer suddenly it invaded our parish church the second floor of my rectory where i live was buried and i climbed it on top of the bell tower the lahar still kept coming you can actually hear the lahar still rising burying the second floors of most houses you can hear people screaming it was very dark you can't see a thing the lahar kills dozens and buries the entire town of baccalaure like cement the remains of the lahar dry quickly and turn rock hard today the entire village is built on top of the dried out lahar eerie reminders of the devastation are everywhere including father ness's church where a new floor had to be built over seven meters of mud since 1991 thousands of lahars have killed nearly 400 people and destroyed more than 42 000 homes but scientists fear that pinatubo is still not finished on top of the mountain a new thread is forming not magma but years of heavy rainfall that have created a giant lake in the volcano's caldera it breached its banks in 2002 generating a massive lahar geologists are concerned about a huge fault that runs through the area the rocks weakened by the fault are more easily eroded and the walls of the channel are very steep and so landslides could fall and plug the channel and cause lake the lake level to rise again and then spontaneously flush out in large amounts that would generate new large lahars the lake contains 100 million cubic meters of water 46 000 people live below it all would be threatened by a major lahar to date the eruption and lahars have affected almost 2 million people for the battered but resilient residents of luzon pinatubo is a constant threat for scientists it's an ongoing spectacle in geological training we're accustomed to thinking in terms of small events repeated over millions tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years to generate mountains but here we see events happening in within a day a huge amount of pyroclastic material a huge hole developed over over a matter of hours or days and that to me is is very fascinating the devastating byproducts of the pinatubo eruption had long-term effects that killed hundreds effects that continue to this day but a mega eruption one that volcanologists are certain will happen could threaten millions the vei-6 eruption of mount pinatubo and its after effects killed more than 700 sent a huge ash and gas cloud around the globe and lowered the earth's surface temperature if we were to experience a vei 7 super eruption it would be 10 times larger it would destroy all life for dozens of kilometers it would drastically change the earth's climate and scientists say it will happen someday [Music] the five million people in the naples italy area live in the highest volcanic risk zone in the world approximately 11 kilometers to the east is mount vesuvius its 79 a.d eruption killed more than 20 000 in pompeii and other villages since then the volcano has erupted 50 times most recently in 1944 vesuvius looms over naples as a constant threat but 15 kilometers to the west is a far less conspicuous but potentially far more deadly volcano campy flagray campy for grey is an enormous 13 kilometer wide caldera with a series of craters scattered inside three hundred and fifty thousand people actually live within the caldera walls since campy flagray is not a tall imposing volcano like vesuvius it attracts little attention but volcanologists like steve self know the massive power it contains here we are in the middle of a volcano that's got a remarkable history of eruptions since it was first formed about 35 000 years ago this area has had repeated eruptions forming the craters like the one we're in we're in a volcanic crater that still has steam vents acting and hissing as you can hear behind us these steam vents reach temperatures of nearly 700 degrees to a casual observer that's impressive but to experts the vents along with ground shifts are ominous warning signs an indicator of campy flagray's power lies in deposits left by a massive eruption 35 to 40 000 years ago it was 10 000 times larger than the 1991 pinatubo eruption these 80 meter tall cliffs in sorrento 30 kilometers from campy flagray are composed to volcanic material left from the super eruption volcanologist giuseppe mastro lorenzo knows their geological proof that enormous pyroclastic flows swept through this entire area the pyroclastic flow moved this way as a turbulent cloud and then i'm placed in mass that's causing the the borrowing of all the area around naples what scientists know about campy flagray's past gives them a realistic model of what could happen in its future the scenario begins with a massive disturbance somewhere within the vast caldera a super eruption more than 240 cubic kilometers of dust gas and pumice hurtle into the air it would bury a very large areas the size of a major city or more in uh thicknesses of ash that uh hundreds of feet thick enormous pyroclastic flows race from the volcano at near supersonic speeds buildings that aren't already buried by ash are knocked down by the force of the flows or incinerated by their 800 degree temperatures the once proud city is completely annihilated the death toll from the flows and ash is apocalyptic we can assume that in case of a super eruption several million of people will be killed the casualties and destruction spread far beyond the immediate area the eruption column grows to a staggering height of 30 kilometers heavy asheville smothers towns near the cold era and spreads as far away as rome 225 kilometers away the city is pelted with more than 20 centimeters of ash enough to cause roofs to collapse and kill thousands of people smaller amounts of ash fall across eastern europe and parts of asia but even small amounts of ash cause big problems even a dusting of a few centimeters would create total disruption to transport systems to water supplies to things that we regularly rely on in our daily life enough to bury plants enough to strip the branches and leaves off trees and things like that the enormous quantity of ash and sulfuric dioxide released by the volcano triggers a planet-wide condition one affecting millions atmospheric models are predicting that the temperature could drop several degrees centigrade and this would affect weather for many years four or five years perhaps after after a very large eruption and temperatures would change uh areas where crops would grow may not be able to grow those crops huge areas of vegetation would die millions could starve to death ultimately the entire planet and everyone on it would be dramatically affected if you consider the number of volcanoes super volcanoes around the world that could potentially produce super eruptions recognizing the fact that there are probably several out there that we don't know about yet we've still got a huge amount to learn about this scale of volcanism then there's possibly something like a one percent chance that an eruption could happen in the next hundred years which is quite high actually high enough for scientists to urge discussions of this type of disaster in the international community volcanologists know that there is no way to prevent an eruption so they learn from the past and study the present in order to help mankind prepare for the future you

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Id: fZM5SXuMYR4

Length: 50min 47sec (3047 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021