• Question: What is the most dangerous thing about volcanoes?

    Asked by karolinaparker to James V on 25 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by oliwiabieber.
    • Photo: James Verdon

      James Verdon answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Hi karolianparker,

      The thing people associate most with volcanoes are the lava flows, but actually these aren’t as dangerous, because they actually move relatively slowly, so people have a chance to get out of the way.

      Probably the most dangerous thing is when a volcano produces what is called a pyroclastic flow. A pyroclastic flow is a cloud of hot gas and as, and can have a temperature of 1000 degrees C, and move as fast as 500 miles per hour. When these explode from a volcano, they move so fast that there’s no chance to get out of the way, and if you get caught in one, there’s almost no chance of survival.

      If you can, go on Wikipedia and look for Mount Pelée. This was a volcano in the Caribbean that erupted in 1902 with a massive pyroclastic flow. The pyroclastic flow hit the town of St Pierre and killed 30,000 people. There was only one survivor, a man who had been locked in an underground prison cell so deep that the hot gasses didn’t reach him.

      Really, the most dangerous thing with volcanoes is their unpredictability. If we knew when they were going to erupt, we could evacuate everyone to a safe place. But sometimes they just erupt with no warning

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