One thing that really fascinates me is one thing that happened in Roman times. About the small little town called Pompeii. No one knows what exactly happened as there is no written records about it.
I am often thinking what happens if our warning systems go. Would be reduced to this kind of situation. I don't like to think about it. But in this town they had no - one who understood any of the warning signs, which were.
Earth tremors - these increase whenever a volcanic eruption. Also they are caused by the earth's plates shifting (for more info keep an eye out as I probably will mention something later on. ) .
A major give away is the ash at the top of the volcano starts to grow at the neck of the volcano. The town then will be filled either with ash or pumice.
With Pompeii the situation was that the first sign was as mentioned the earth tremors, but they did not have the skills like how we did to decipher their meanings. These people read it as signs that the gods were punishing them for something. As it turned out it was more than that. It was not only Pompeii that was affected a town just on the other side of the mountain called Herculaneum. Which even more people perished as they bore the brunt of the molten Lava. .
Elsewhere in Herculaneum people died from thermal shock. This was the end of this town. Pompeii was about to suffer the same fate. The thing that got to the people was the carbon dioxide, which was realised from the volcano at about the same time as a surge cloud. Ironically the surge cloud, which was realised from Vesuvius, did not have enough energy to make it past the north wall of the city. This drove the cloud of carbon dioxide. .
The only shelter that these people had was their own homes and the roofs of these were not stable enough to hold any thing near as much the weight off the pumice that was falling on Pompeii, they did not know what had happened to the other town and that people were still walking the streets looking for gold of all the other villagers.