12. The catastrophe that proved a Godsend for Archaeology
On August 24th, 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius blew its top with a force 100,000 times greater than that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. The eruption tossed deadly debris, mixed with a cloud of poisonous gasses, over 20 miles up into the air. As Vesuvius spewed into the air, lava and hot pumice poured out of the volcano’s mouth at a rate of 1.5 million tons per second. The mixture raced down Vesuvius’ side to devastate the surrounding region and destroy nearby towns, of which Pompeii and Herculaneum are the best known.
In preceding days, there had been tremors, but they were not unusual. Then, around noon on August 24th, a cloud appeared atop Vesuvius, and about an hour later, the volcano erupted and ash began to fall on Pompeii, 6 miles away. By 2PM, olcanic debris, begin to fall with the ash, and by 5PM sunlight had been completely blocked and roofs in Pompeii began collapsing under the accumulating weight of ash and pumice. Panicked townspeople rushed to the harbor seeking any ship that would take them away.