It’s fairly incredible to think one of those skeletons found on the beach may actually be Pliney the Elder himself. These sort of quasi-mythical accounts being made tangible are amazing. It’s like finding a piece of the Trojan Horse!
I've been there and my first thought is just how idiotically stupid humans are for building a massive modern town UPHILL from those ruins.
I mean hello this place got obliterated, evidence is right in front of you, it's probably not a great place to build stuff ...
Oh and even in California I see these lava flows around Mt. Shasta and railways cut into them ... hello, have you thought about going around the lava flows instead of cutting into them? What do you think is going to happen next time lava comes flowing down?
For volcanoes, the lure is that volcanic soil is extremely fertile. In Roman times, the choice for those living around Vesuvius was one between “way harder to grow your food” and “small chance of a volcanic eruption that may kill you”
“One example of the effect of volcanoes on agricultural lands is in Italy. Except for the volcanic region around Naples, farming in southern Italy is exceedingly difficult because limestone forms the basement rock and the soil is generally quite poor. But the region around Naples, which includes Mount Vesuvius, is very rich mainly because of two large eruptions 35,000 and 12000 years ago that left the region blanketed with very thick deposits of tephra which has since weathered to rich soils. Part of this area includes Mount Vesuvius. The region has been intensively cultivated since before the birth of Christ. The land is planted with vines, vegetables, or flowers. Every square foot of this rich soil is used. For example, even a small vineyard will have, in addition to grapes and spring beans on the trellises, fava beans, cauliflower and onions between the trellis rows, and the vineyard margin rimmed with orange and lemon trees, herbs, and flowers. It also is a huge tomato growing region“
There are old stone tsunami markers in coastal areas around Japan. "Don't build below this point."
The Fukushima nuclear facility was built below that point.
> "It takes about three generations for people to forget. Those that experience the disaster themselves pass it to their children and their grandchildren, but then the memory fades," Fumihiko Imamura, a professor in disaster planning at Tohoku University, told the AP.
You really don't have to go that far back. Considering every decade a beach community gets wiped off the map by a hurricane and is immediately rebuilt, few rarely care about the consequences. People are always building in fire/flood/disaster zones. I suppose with insurance and the ability to flee these destructive forces of nature are an acceptable risk. Taking this a step further, climate change could make the whole planet uninhabitable and we still can't get anyone to give a shit.
It's very likely that they didn't really know that Vesuvio was a volcano at all...
According to various sources they just consider it a mountain, given that it was all covered of vegetation and there was no recorded trace of activity in the previous centuries.
Plus, as said... Growing stuff there is a pleasure (reason why plenty of people still live in that area). Have you ever tasted the tomatoes growing there? There's a reason why the pizza you can have nearby is something you can't eat anywhere else in the world!
By that logic, nobody should be doing any construction, anywhere.
Natural disasters are a part of living on our planet. If an event is exceedingly rare, such as a volcano eruption, how much time do we need to spend worrying about it? As far as the Romans were aware at the time, Vesuvius was probably one of the only volcanic episodes that any Roman had ever dealt with, they were likely well aware that it was unlikely to happen again. Today, we're a bit better off with our hoards of knowledge and ability to observe to some higher level of accuracy, when a volcano might erupt, so it does make a lot of sense to just build whatever convenient infrastructure we need right next to a volcano
> Natural disasters are a part of living on our planet.
No, they don't have to be. It's exceedingly easy to avoid certain types of natural disasters by avoiding disaster-prone areas. Volcanoes are easy to avoid.
> No, they don't have to be. It's exceedingly easy to avoid certain types of natural disasters by avoiding disaster-prone areas. Volcanoes are easy to avoid.
Volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes are each fairly easy to avoid, but its harder to avoid them at the same time without giving up on things like freshwater supplies, trade by sea, prime agricultural land, etc.
There are reasons people live in places that periodically see disaster.
If you know about them and if you haven't already established an entire society in their shadow. Otherwise you suddendly have a sizeable population that must immigrate en masse to a new area.
But mass immigration is fraught with perils and resisted fiercely by the populations already established in the areas receiving the immigrants. There are major humanitarian crises unfolding right now because of this, the world over, although the disasters most people flee these days are man-made, war and environmental destruction. But the result is the same.
Speaking of California. SF bay area has a 20% probability of 7.5 earthquake within the next 30 years[1]. Probably not a great place to build stuff either.
I doubt it would be more economical. I strongly suspect someone did the analysis, determined that at five 9s they earn $X, at six 9s they earn $Y, and the difference between the two is large enough to be worth funding the projects to get there.
And then you have to shut down lots of supply chains. You could just route the tracks a minimum distance from active volcanoes and not worry about the next eruption disrupting transportation.
If you want to read a fantastic historical fiction novel that covers these events (including Pliny the Elder's rescue mission) seek out Pompeii by Robert Harris.
I really like Robert Harris in general, Fatherland being my favorite (shame about the terrible movie adaptation!), and the Cicero Trilogy being fantastic. But for some reason Pompeii didn't do it for me :( It's OK, it's by no means bad, but it left me unsatisfied.
