'Super volcano' that could kill millions lurks near Italy

August 5, 2012

volcano

Pozzuoli, August 5: Across the bay of Naples from Pompeii, where thousands were incinerated by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, lies a hidden "super volcano" that could kill millions in a catastrophe many times worse, scientists say.

The boiling mud and sulphurous steam holes of the area west of Naples known as the Campi Flegrei or Phlegraean Fields, from the Greek word for burning, are a major tourist attraction.

But the zone of intense seismic activity, which the ancients thought was the entrance to hell, also could pose a danger of global proportions with millions of people literally living on top of a potential future volcanic eruption.


"These areas can give rise to the only eruptions that can have global catastrophic effects comparable to major meteorite impacts," said Giuseppe De Natale, head of a project to drill deep under the earth to monitor the molten "caldera".

One such meteorite impact is thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago when debris thrown into the atmosphere from the huge explosion plunged the earth into darkness.

Scientists plan to drill 3.5 km (2.2 miles) below the surface to monitor the huge chamber of molten rock near Pompeii and give early warning of any eruption from a 13-km-wide collapsed volcanic caldera.

The Campi Flegrei are similar to the Yellowstone caldera in the U.S. state of Wyoming but of more concern because they are in an area populated by around 3 million people in the Naples hinterland.

"Fortunately, it is extremely rare for these areas to erupt at their full capacity, as it is extremely rare for large meteorites to hit the earth," Mr De Natale told Reuters.

"But some of these areas, in particular the Campi Flegrei, are densely populated and therefore even small eruptions, which are the most probable, fortunately, can pose risks for the population," said Mr De Natale, from the Vesuvius observatory at Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology.

"That is why the Campi Flegrei absolutely must be studied and monitored. I wouldn't say like others, but much more than the others exactly because of the danger given that millions of people live in the volcano."

However, the project, funded by the multi-national International Continental Scientific Drilling Programme, has run into major opposition from some local scientists who say the drilling itself could cause a dangerous eruption or earthquake.

EXPLOSION

Benedetto De Vivo, a geochemist at Naples University, has said the drilling could cause an explosion.

The Naples city council blocked the project in 2010 but it resumed on the site of an abandoned steel mill at Bagnoli, west of Naples, late last month after the recently elected new mayor, Luigi De Magistris, gave the go-ahead.

Mr De Natale scoffed at the objections, saying that the drilling was perfectly safe and that similar probes had been sent down by mining projects looking for sources of thermal energy in the 1980s and earlier.

"There were dozens of drillings in the past, with much less secure instruments for industrial motives and nobody said anything," he said.

He added that those raising objections were not experts on drilling and that their suggestions of potential earthquakes or escapes of magma or liquid molten rock, had been exaggerated by the local press.

"Some of the things they suggested are laughable," he said, adding that the project's priority will be scientific knowledge and safety of the local population rather than industrial exploitation as in the past.

"We believe the security of millions of people deserves the most powerful methods of inquiry without thinking too much about the economic aspect," he said.

He added that drilling is the only way to discover the geological history of the area because successive eruptions buried previous evidence. The probe has already found volcanic rock from a major eruption 15,000 years ago.

De Natale's team has begun drilling a pilot hole at the Bagnoli site, where a long jetty built to load steel is used by joggers and courting couples enjoying the spectacular Neapolitan sunsets.

The pilot hole is aimed not only at studying the stratification of the area but to establish a deep geological observatory with new instruments which De Natale says are many times more sensitive than those in the past.

"This will increase by a thousand or 10,000 times our ability to detect small episodes that are precursors of future eruptions," he said.

MOVEMENT OF EARTH'S SURFACE

The project also aims to study the cause of a phenomenon known as bradyseism which is a gradual raising and lowering of the earth's surface because of deep volcanic activity. This is episodic but in the latest phase the ground has risen by 3.5 m (yards) in 15 years, the most since medieval times.

This movement forced the evacuation of 30,000 people temporarily from Pozzuoli in the 1980s and a fishing harbour in the old part of the town was completely abandoned.

Once work is complete on the pilot hole, scientists plan to drill much deeper, to around 3.5 km where temperatures are at around 500 degrees C (930 F). But De Natale said this could take another 18 months and the area for the second phase has not yet been decided.

His team has developed new fibre optic sensors able to withstand the extreme heat that would have destroyed earlier electronic equipment.

"We will be able to identify the smallest signs of a future eruption...this is an enormous mitigation of the volcanic risk," he said.

De Natale says there will be no risk of an escape of magma because the molten chamber is at 7-km depth or lower and sensors will give ample warning of temperatures that reach 1,000 degrees C at the molten core.

"We will stop everything if we detect temperatures at 500 degrees...we can close the top of the drilling hole hermetically in a fraction of a second," he said.

Local people are divided on whether the drilling could be dangerous.

"There is a risk that the drilling can lead to a shift of the earth's surface and if that happened, rather than helping to predict future problems, they will be creating them," Pozzuoli student Marco Laporta said.

Many are more sanguine. "Back in the 1980s they said we would all be blown up and we weren't," pensioner Luigi Bruni said.



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News Network
March 25,2024

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A teenager who led over 100 people to safety during Friday’s terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall, has been hailed as a hero. 15-year-old Islam Khalilov, who worked part-time in one of the cloakrooms at Crocus City, recounted the events of the tragic evening to the Ruptly video agency.

The concert venue situated just outside of Moscow was packed ahead of a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, when a group of terrorists armed with assault rifles forced their way into the building. They fired indiscriminately at fleeing people and then set the concert hall on fire.

According to the latest estimates, the attack has claimed the lives of at least 137 people, with about 180 injured.

Khalilov told the video agency that “it was when people started running from the escalator, from the stairway” that he realized that an emergency was occurring. The teenager said that he was acting on “instincts” at the time and used his thorough knowledge of the premises to quickly arrange visitors’ evacuation toward another building within the Crocus City complex.

“I started shouting all across the foyer, all across Crocus City Hall - ‘Folks, there’s a shooting! All run to the expo!’ – and I was showing where they had to go and was helping everyone,” he explained.

According to the cloakroom attendant, “there was a stampede, and everyone was in shock at first. No one knew what to do and where to go.”

Khalilov added that he himself was running behind the entire group to make sure he had not left anyone behind.

The teenager admitted to being “really scared” all along, but still managed to make the right use the instructions he’d previously been given on how to evacuate patrons in case of an emergency.

He told Ruptly that, at one point, he had caught a glimpse of one of the terrorists.

“I saw one, [he was] bearded and in green fatigues, he was walking around with an assault rifle,” the teenager recounted.

He also recalled seeing a man getting fatally shot by one of the assailants, adding that he “can’t stop thinking about it.”

The 15-year-old said he doesn’t consider himself a hero, and that he was just doing his job.

Explaining what helped him overcome fear, Khalilov reasoned that “It’s better to sacrifice yourself than to let a hundred people die.”

After Khalilov’s feat had been reported-on by several Russian media outlets, his favorite football club, FC Spartak Moscow, invited him to a meeting where he was presented with free passes to their matches.

Popular Russian rap artist Morgenstern said he had transferred 1,000,000 rubles ($11,000) to the teenager – something that Khalilov has confirmed to media.

The leader of Russia's Muslims, Mufti Ravil Guynutdin, has announced that Khalilov would receive a medal for his bravery.

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News Network
March 16,2024

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Ottawa, Mar 16: An Indian-origin couple and their teenage daughter were killed in a "suspicious" fire which tore through their home last week in Canada's Ontario province, police said on Friday.

A fire engulfed a home at the Big Sky Way and Van Kirk Drive area of Brampton on March 7, a press release by the Peel Police said.

After the blaze was put out, investigators located what was believed to be human remains within the gutted house, but the number of people killed couldn't be ascertained at the time.

The charred remains were on Friday identified as those of three family members: 51-year-old Rajiv Warikoo; his wife, 47-year-old Shilpa Kotha; and their 16-year-old daughter, Mahek Warikoo.

Police said that they resided at the address before the fire.

Peel police Constable Taryn Young on Friday said the fire had been deemed suspicious, the CTV news channel reported.

"At this time, we are investigating this with our homicide bureau, and we are deeming this as suspicious as the Ontario Fire Marshal has deemed that this fire was not accidental," the report quoted Young as saying.

"There's not much left to it," Young said when asked about the possible cause of the fire.

"Looking into something like that as a fire marshal, I'm sure it's very tough when there is not much left to look at. But we are exhausting all avenues," she said.

The deceased family's neighbour, Kenneth Yousaf, said that the family had lived on the street for about 15 years, and he never noticed any problems with them.

Yousaf said he was alerted to the fire last week by a family member, who heard a big "bang." "When we came out, the house was on fire. So sad. Within a few hours, everything was down to the ground," the report quoted Yousaf as saying.

In a press release, police said they are continuing to investigate the deaths of the three family members and urged anyone with information to come forward.

"The circumstances surrounding the house fire remains the focus of an active investigation, and anyone with information or video footage (dashcam or otherwise) is urged to contact Homicide detectives," police said.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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