Super-volcano: First time since the 1538 eruption, Italy prepares to evacuate thousands
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Italy is preparing to evacuate tens of thousands of people because a super-volcano, Campi Flegrei, is threatening to erupt any day, for the first time since its last eruption in 1538, the media reported on Saturday.
The government started planning for a possible mass evacuation because the volcanic activity has caused over 2,500 tremors since September.
According to NBC News, half a million people in Pozzuoli, a port city next to Naples, are extremely concerned about the recent volcanic activity. The super-volcano last erupted in 1538.
The 80-square-mile depression is home to more than a dozen conical volcanoes and several crater lakes.
Another 800,000 people live just outside the depression, the media reported.
The US Geological Society defines a super-volcano as “a volcanic center that has had an eruption of magnitude 8 on the Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI), meaning that at one point in time, it erupted more than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles) of material.”
Italy’s official tourism website characterized Campi Flegrei as a “dormant super-volcano, one of the few on Earth’s surface.”
According to a Wall Street Journal report, quoting Alessandro Iannace, a geology professor at the University of Naples Federico II, the probability of a catastrophic eruption is low but not nil at Campi Flegrei, just like at Yellowstone and the world’s other super-volcanoes.
A phenomenon known as “bradyseism” has been attributed to the increase in recent earthquakes in the Campi Flegrei. The area around Pozzuoli’s port has risen about 11.5 feet since the late 1960s, including more than 3 feet since 2014, according to Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology.
The Italian government reviewed the situation last month and said that authorities would call for an evacuation if officials feel that buildings could be prone to collapse. Nello Musumeci, a civil protection minister, said that any evacuation would take place only in the event of “extreme necessity.”
Pamphlets have also been distributed to locals in Pozzouli on what to do in case of an eruption and its aftermath. “Everybody here knows the evacuation plan is inadequate. But it’s probably not even necessary, because everybody will have left by the time the volcano erupts,” a resident, Claudio Correale, said.
According to a recent study by Italy’s National Institute and University College London, an eruption in Campi Flegrei isn’t imminent, but earthquakes have weakened the volcano, making a rupture in the crust more likely.
