What is a Volcano?

Volcanoes are mountains that have an opening where molten lava flows down from the side. Most of these volcanoes ruin villages. Volcanoes are usually active and most people who live near one don't know it. People mostly die from volcanoes.Where volcanoes occur is magma that rises to the surface at the edges of the plates, this means that the volcanoes are mostly spaced out around the Earth in long thin lines. A, plate edges stretch all the way around the Pacific Ocean. This is a place where plates collide. It contains many explosive volcanoes. Volcanoes don't just occur on land, they can be found on the ocean floor and under ice caps.In Armero, a volcano named Nevado del Ruiz erupted. The people who lived near the volcano thought it would never erupt again because it hadn't erupted over 400 years.

The eruption began in the late afternoon. The volcano blew ash 26,000 ft into the air. Brown ash started falling from the sky onto armero like snow, but it was hard and gritty. An hour later it started raining. The radio station told people to stay calm. Very few left their homes. On the island of Sumatra, Indonesia a volcano named Toba exploded. It produced a volcanic crater the size of London and all its suburbs. About 240 cubic miles of volcanic dust was thrown high into the air. In 1470 BC, a huge explosive eruption of the Santorini volcano on the Mediterranean island of Crete, wiped out all of the inhabitants. The AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius in southern Italy, is said to be the world's most famous volcanic disaster.About 350 million or 20 people in the world live within danger range to an active volcano. A volcano may not have erupted for many years so people may think it is unlikely that there will be an eruption in their lifetime.

There is also a risk that people may die of a volcanic eruption. No one believed Vesuvius was still active. There were no records of any eruption the cone was eroded and overgrown with vegetation. There were some warnings that there could be an eruption but people didn't know enough about volcanoes to notice this. From AD 63, there was several strong earthquakes a sure sign that the land underneath was starting to crack. This allowed the magma to rise to the surface and reactivate the volcano. Volcanic eruptions may affect areas many miles away from the volcano itself. People that live thousands of miles away may die. Unless there is a warning radio or television, these people will not even know disaster is on its way. In 1815, an eruption of a volcano in Indonesia started a huge ocean wave called a tsunami that drowned 56,000 people living in coastal towns, many hundreds of miles away. In 1783, a huge ash cloud from one of Iceland's many volcanoes, covered the land with such thick layer of ash that all the crops died. As a result, the people had no food for the following winter about 10,000 people had died of starvation.

A fifth of the country's population at that time died. The main problem facing all governments, and especially those developing countries, is how to give an effective warning and how to organize speedy escape when danger threatens. Many people live in remote places and some do not have televisions or radios. A news broadcast will probably not be heard by the people who are most at risk. Many roads have not been built for rapid transport and in some places it may be hard to arrange for vehicles to be assembled quickly in times of emergency. Helicopters can only move a small amount of people and they are very expensive.Most people die because they live near a volcano and they don't know when it is going to erupt. People can't escape volcano eruptions. People rarely survive and don't live for long because their crops and home got destroyed. Volcanoes are very dangerous to live near, and to be near one.

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