Vesuvius ancient eruption rescuer identified at Herculaneum, says expert
bbc.com
bbc.com
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?
It would be more economical for Google to use 99% uptime systems but they do go the extra mile for 99.9999% uptime.
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
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.
What about supervolcanoes? [1]
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.
We have roads high up in the mountains even though there is danger they get flooded, rock falls on them, the ground gives, etc.
We build wooden houses where tornadoes are regular occurrence.
It is not all stupidity, think of it at least partly as a sign of stubbornness and perseverance of humankind.
https://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/soil.htm:
“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“
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.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/century-old-warnin...
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!
Perhaps some people compared Vesuvio to Etna (which erupts much more often) and realized it was a volcano?
[1] https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-probability-earthquake-will-o...
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/76010/pompeii-by-ro...