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00:01The doomed Roman city of Pompeii.
00:06Destroyed by the eruption of a killer volcano.
00:10Buried beneath ash and rock for nearly 2,000 years,
00:14Pompeii's death is legendary.
00:18But the mystery of its birth remains unsolved.
00:22Now scientists venture beneath the surface of this lost world
00:26to discover why the people of Pompeii founded their city
00:30in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
00:34What we should ask ourselves is why would people build on a volcano?
00:41Breakthroughs reveal surprising secrets hidden in this apocalyptic landscape.
00:47When this eruption started, people had no time to escape.
00:53Could this deadly volcano actually be the very reason why Pompeii exists at all?
01:01To solve these mysteries, we'll pull apart this remarkable city stone by stone.
01:07We'll dive beneath the marble floors and behind the frescoes
01:11to unearth the astonishing secrets of this doomed metropolis
01:15and discover why it was founded here in the danger zone.
01:27Pompeii, built in the shadow of mainland Europe's most active volcano, Vesuvius.
01:34An entire Roman city with a population of 11,000 people,
01:38raised to the ground by an apocalyptic eruption,
01:44entombed 2,000 years ago by nearly 25 feet of volcanic debris.
01:51But now investigators are digging beneath the layer preserved by the ash.
01:56Their goal? To delve into a deeper mystery
01:59and shed light on the city's very foundations.
02:04We always think of Pompeii as the classic Roman town.
02:07And we forget that this has got a long, long history of occupation beforehand.
02:15Underneath a thick layer of volcanic debris
02:19lies an entire ancient metropolis preserved for centuries.
02:26Flanked by shops and bars, Pompeii's main street is frozen in time.
02:33It led to the center of the city, the Forum.
02:37It was enclosed on three sides by a grand pillared arcade,
02:44once the bustling heart of Pompeii.
02:48Who founded this city?
02:50And why was it constructed in the blast zone of an active volcano?
02:59Archaeologist Sophie Hay has dedicated her career to investigating Pompeii.
03:05She's trying to piece together how and why the city emerged here.
03:10This is what makes Pompeii so special.
03:13You can see the state of preservation here, unparalleled in the Roman world.
03:19A third of the town still remains untouched by archaeologists
03:23to preserve the treasures under the ash.
03:27But today, for the first time in more than a decade,
03:31a major new excavation is beginning.
03:34The dig gives Sophie a rare chance to investigate the shocking depth
03:38to which Pompeii was buried.
03:41It highlights the enormous challenge archaeologists face
03:45in their search for this city's mysterious origins.
03:48This is the material that Vesuvius dumped upon Pompeii during the 79 AD eruption.
03:54And this just filled these ruins.
03:59The preservation of everyday Roman life is breathtaking.
04:02It has made Pompeii's story truly iconic.
04:07Even now, archaeologists are unearthing grand villas adorned with intricate wall paintings
04:13and beautiful mosaics.
04:17They're building an incredibly detailed picture of how Pompeii's people lived.
04:24from the bankers and politicians to the slaves and gladiators.
04:31This is the closest contact I can have with the Romans,
04:34seeing the everyday objects that they used nearly 2,000 years ago.
04:42Archaeologists are still unearthing victims from the city's final day,
04:47like this man, crushed by flying rubble.
04:52But beneath the Roman layer hide untold secrets.
04:58Most of the excavations of Pompeii stop at the Roman level.
05:01We've got a long way to go before we understand the origins.
05:09Who founded this city?
05:10And why did they choose this spot?
05:13Can a discovery at the gates of Pompeii reveal why the city emerged here beneath a volcano?
05:24Buried underground, archaeologists have discovered a tomb,
05:30undisturbed for more than 2,000 years.
05:35Stone slabs mark the final resting place of a solitary female skeleton.
05:44There are few clues to her identity.
05:48But surrounding her body are 12 beautifully decorated vases,
05:54painted in a style almost unlike anything else excavated in Pompeii.
06:00What can these rare objects reveal about the area's secret history?
06:07The vases open a window onto the little-known tribes who occupied Pompeii
06:12before Rome conquered it in 80 BC.
06:17They estimate these potteries are coming from the end of the 5th century before Christ.
06:25Wow, that's a good few hundred years before Roman Pompeii.
06:30These vases are extremely old, but the decoration is not Roman.
06:35It's Greek.
06:36For Sophie and pottery specialist Leticia Cavassa, the origin of the tomb's offerings is an important clue.
06:44This one and the other one are coming from Greece.
06:47And these two here, they're beautiful.
06:50We think it's an Italian production, but it looks like Greek.
06:55Before the rise of Rome, the Greeks were one of the most advanced civilizations in the Mediterranean.
07:03The vases suggest they were here, sharing their culture with early Pompeians.
07:09But why?
07:13Today, Pompeii seems an unlikely place to find a Greek vase.
07:18But 2,000 years ago, it was a center of trade close to the sea.
07:24The city was strategically placed near the Sarnas River, giving the town direct access to the Bay of Naples.
07:36Surrounded by the steep slopes of ancient volcanoes, the Bay was known for its unusually deep waters.
07:44Much of Italy's coast is made up of shallow beaches that large ships cannot approach.
07:50So the Bay of Naples became vital for international trade.
07:59Sophie believes ancient Greek commerce may be the key to unlocking Pompeii's origins.
08:08She heads to the town's oldest district in search of more evidence.
08:14This is the Triangular Forum. It's a mysterious place in Pompeii.
08:18It feels very different.
08:22Archaeologists believe the Triangular Forum is a remnant of Pompeii's earliest days.
08:29Clues to the town's beginnings survive in the stonework here.
08:36So this is the last piece in the jigsaw, this huge piece of architectural fragment.
08:41It was a column capital, so right at the top of a column.
08:45But it's not Roman, it's Greek.
08:48And it dates to the 6th century BC, so 700 years before the eruption of Vesuvius.
08:57The temple overlooks the old course of the river.
09:02Sophie believes it's a clear sign that Pompeii was tapping into the ancient Greek trading world.
09:09The Greek columns would have been visible to passing traders in search of markets to sell goods.
09:14Everything from pottery to food and even slaves.
09:22Pompeii was a melting pot of cultures from the 6th century BC all the way through to the Roman period.
09:28And that's sort of encapsulated here.
09:31By 79 AD, Pompeii had developed into a thriving trading hub, thanks to steep volcanic slopes forming a deep natural
09:40harbor.
09:42But was the volcano providing more than just a port?
09:47Was the force that eventually killed Pompeii the very thing that allowed it to flourish in the first place?
10:09Pompeii, an entire Roman city destroyed and preserved by a volcanic eruption.
10:19The settlement's history stretches back hundreds of years before 79 AD.
10:25But why did Pompeii change from a small coastal port to a major commercial hub?
10:34Did the volcano itself provide the resources needed for the town's transformation into a thriving Roman city?
10:42Geologist Guido Giordano thinks a clue may lie hidden in the actual fabric of Pompeii's buildings.
10:52Everywhere you walk through this city, you find evidence of volcanic material being used in construction.
10:59And this is because volcanoes produce a wide variety of rock types, from hard and heavy lava to soft and
11:08light volcanic tufts.
11:10And in the Bay of Naples, those are everywhere.
11:16Pompeii's Roman roads were laid with tough lava stone to withstand the heavy traffic of horse-drawn carts.
11:24Decorative architectural features were sculpted from softer volcanic tuff.
11:29Did these materials attract the first Pompeians to this location?
11:37Beneath a house in the south of the city lies evidence of Pompeii's original architecture.
11:45Stone foundations buried below the surface that predate the surrounding buildings by hundreds of years.
11:54They stretch back to the sixth century B.C.
11:59Made from soft volcanic rock and packed into the ground, a mere four inches deep.
12:06These foundations were the roots of the earliest structures in Pompeii.
12:11Could this rock hold the answer to why this city grew and flourished here?
12:20In 79 A.D., Vesuvius had been dormant for hundreds of years.
12:25But volcanic material from much older eruptions formed the region's bedrock.
12:31So what was it that made this rock so useful to ancient builders?
12:37Building materials are fundamental to understanding ancient civilizations.
12:45This material is actually very soft, very easily workable.
12:50But at the same time, it is strong.
12:53And that's why Pompeii is largely made of blocks of tuffs like this one.
13:02The volcano provided the raw material for early Pompeians to build their settlement.
13:07But Guido believes that when the Romans conquered the region, their ingenious use of tuff helped them to supersize the
13:14city.
13:21He investigates a stone mine deep beneath the nearby city of Naples.
13:27Here, ancient tuff can be found in its original state, volcanic ash cemented into rock.
13:34The citizens used carved blocks of tuff to construct Pompeii's grand public buildings.
13:40But they also used it as a mortar.
13:44When crushed, the rock turns back into loose ash.
13:48One of the most revolutionary inventions of ancient Romans was to mix this volcanic ash with quicklime to produce a
14:01cement that is actually able to dry even in wet environments.
14:07The Romans' development of hydraulic cement meant they could build underwater.
14:12This wonder material transformed their influence within the Mediterranean.
14:18This invention allowed them to build concrete structures and piers for their harbors.
14:25And this is probably one of the key aspects of the success of Pompeii.
14:33The advanced infrastructure of the Bay of Naples ports enabled Pompeii to thrive on Mediterranean trade.
14:41But what were Pompeii's merchants selling?
14:45Was living beneath a volcano actually boosting the city's economy?
14:52With commerce flourishing in the Bay, business boomed for traders.
14:58Nowhere more than at the hundreds of bars across Pompeii.
15:03These served locally grown food to visitors and Pompeians alike.
15:08Perhaps functioning as informal meeting points where trade deals could be made.
15:13The walls were covered in frescoes depicting the Roman god of wine, Bacchus.
15:20And their storerooms were stocked full of amphorae, vessels for transporting wine.
15:27Amphorae bearing Pompeii's stamps have turned up across the Roman Empire, from Britain to North Africa.
15:36So was wine at the heart of Pompeii's roaring trade?
15:41Today, farmers grow grapes in organic vineyards all over the mountain.
15:47Guido believes that Vesuvius's geology may offer a huge advantage to this industry.
15:54Today's soils contain the products of Vesuvius's most recent eruption.
15:58The latest was in 1944.
16:022,000 years ago, Pompeii's winemakers would have been growing vines in the ash of earlier eruptions.
16:09This kind of material is very easily weathered by water, by rainwater.
16:16So the minerals are released to the soil very quickly.
16:22Until 79 AD, Vesuvius hadn't erupted for centuries.
16:27Long enough for generations of farmers to safely establish vineyards and perfect the art of winemaking.
16:35Guido tests the acidity of the soil.
16:38It confirms the reason for Pompeii's success in wine production.
16:43So this has worked perfectly. Look at the orange color.
16:46That means that the soil is very acidic.
16:49And this is due to the presence of a very high content of potassium in the Vesuvius volcanic ash.
16:59Potassium is very important to plants.
17:02So that's the reason why this soil is so fertile.
17:09Pompeii had everything it needed to become a thriving trading hub.
17:13The volcano provided natural harbors, the raw material for commercial infrastructure.
17:20And even its major export, wine.
17:27Pompeii had a prime location.
17:29So no wonder it was flourishing in the first century.
17:36The volcano was clearly key to Pompeii's prosperity.
17:41As it grew, more people came to live in the danger zone.
17:46But did the benefits that allowed the city to prosper come at a deadly cost?
17:51Long before Vesuvius erupted?
17:54And did the people of Pompeii know that their time was running out?
18:16Pompeii, one of the most perfectly preserved cities in the ancient world.
18:21Now archaeologists are discovering that the town destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 AD was no ordinary Roman city.
18:33Pompeii was a 600-year-old Mediterranean trading hub.
18:38It owed its very existence to the volcano and the resources it provided.
18:44But was Vesuvius also extracting a deadly price?
18:48Even before it erupted?
18:51A clue lies in the city's lifeblood, its ingenious Roman water network.
19:00At the highest point of the city stands the Castellum Acque,
19:05distributing water throughout Pompeii.
19:09Connected to it, lead pipes travel 150 yards downhill beneath the sidewalk
19:17to the first water tower.
19:24This fed the city's homes and public baths.
19:28But encrusted on the brick,
19:32a thick mineral deposit built up over decades.
19:37Could this residue have had a potentially deadly effect on the people living here?
19:45Forensic anthropologist Pierre Paolo Petroni wants to find out.
19:51The bones of the dead could hold the answers, but they're locked away from forensic examination.
19:59Contorted in their agonizing death poses and covered by falling ash,
20:04the victims were preserved by 19th century archaeologists.
20:07They cast in plaster the molds left by the long decayed bodies.
20:14But the plaster is so dense, even CT scans struggle to penetrate through to the bone inside.
20:22So for clues, Pierre Paolo examines skeletons excavated from neighboring Herculaneum.
20:28This was another town buried by the eruption of 79 AD.
20:33He looks for evidence that could explain the effect of living beneath Vesuvius.
20:40In Pompeii, in Herculaneum, we have a complete population
20:44that is fixed in the time due to a sudden natural catastrophe.
20:49It's a kind of cross-section of a living population.
20:55Pierre Paolo uses a CT scanner to investigate the skull of a man who died sheltering from the eruption.
21:03The scans reveal a surprise.
21:08This man was relatively old when the volcano killed him.
21:13From the tomography, we can see something very interesting,
21:16which is a kind of flattening, which is typical of old people.
21:21In Roman time, most of the people lived until 35, 40s, not longer.
21:28So they died very young. But this is a very old man.
21:35Was Vesuvius having a sinister effect on his quality of life?
21:40Pierre Paolo examines the skeletons in search of a pattern of pathology.
21:46In almost every victim, he finds strange bony growths that would have made joints stiff and painful.
21:55In some cases, the effects are shockingly severe, even leading to paralysis.
22:02We find this kind of alteration in all ages.
22:05This is a young male.
22:07And you see that we have a complete fusion of the heap with sacrum, which should be free.
22:16In this case, it's completely fused.
22:20Pierre Paolo analyzes the victim's teeth to find more clues.
22:25What he discovers suggests that the mystery disease was linked to their diet and the region's volcanic soil.
22:34We have a kind of discoloration of these teeth, which is very typical of fluorosis.
22:43Fluorosis is caused by the excessive consumption of the mineral fluoride.
22:50Pierre Paolo thinks that the people of Pompeii were being slowly poisoned by a contaminated water supply.
23:01Vesuvius' permeable volcanic rock is rich in fluoride.
23:07As rain filters through the ground, this fluoride dissolves into the water, entering springs in the valley below.
23:15The Romans used these polluted springs for drinking water and built an ingenious aqueduct to carry it down to Pompeii.
23:23At the Castellum Aquae, the water was divided to supply fountains, baths, and houses across the city.
23:35The people drank the fluoride-laced water, which over time ravaged their bones and joints.
23:45The volcanic terrain that had nurtured the city was sucking the life from its population.
23:53The people of Pompeii had prospered due to the volcano's natural resources.
23:58But did they have any idea they were living beneath a silent killer?
24:03Should they have spotted the warning signs that this volcano was about to erupt?
24:08And could they have escaped?
24:25Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed by a giant volcanic eruption.
24:30Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed by a giant volcanic eruption.
24:32Today, archaeologists are still digging down through the millions of tons of volcanic debris to uncover its hidden secrets.
24:42Could Pompeii's citizens have known their time was running out?
24:48Volcanologist Giuseppe Mastro Lorenzo investigates the heartbeat of this sleeping giant.
24:55He's trying to figure out whether the volcano offered any warning of the fury it was about to unleash.
25:04It is hard to comprehend how devastating was the ID-79 eruption.
25:10In a few hours, all the villages and towns around Vesuvius were destroyed and thousands of people were killed.
25:18Even today, one third of this city is still completely buried under volcanic ash.
25:28From here, you can have an idea of the impact of the eruption.
25:32This part is not excavated and this is completely excavated.
25:38Several meters of deposit produced by the eruption in a few hours.
25:43This was an incredible event.
25:49Did the people of Pompeii have any inkling of the cataclysm that was coming their way?
25:56There may be a clue in the walls of one of Pompeii's partially excavated buildings.
26:01This impressive villa set around a courtyard.
26:08Inside is a snapshot of Pompeii's final moments.
26:13On the north wall, the yellow sketched outline of an unfinished fresco.
26:20Beneath it, archaeologists discovered pots stained with bright paint pigments.
26:26Alongside them, larger pots containing lime plaster, the base layer for another painting.
26:33But there's a strange mistake.
26:38Plaster was splashed on the wall covering the fresco, evidence of a panic when this room was abandoned.
26:45People were working here right up until the eruption.
26:51Should they have spotted the warning signs?
26:55Painters were restoring the frescoes, as you can see from the new plaster on the walls.
27:01This restoration was necessary because of the damage caused by earthquakes before the eruption.
27:12Earthquakes often occur in the lead-up to an eruption.
27:16They're caused by molten rock or magma building up within the volcano.
27:24Archaeologists have identified more signs of earthquake damage around the city.
27:29Cracks in stone walls, patched up with bricks.
27:33The people of Pompeii were still making repairs even though the volcano had started to produce tremors.
27:40Why?
27:44The Romans were no strangers to active volcanoes, such as Etna and Stromboli.
27:52Their eruptions were rarely preceded by earthquakes, but seismic activity did occur regularly.
28:00Italy straddles a major fault line where two mighty tectonic plates meet.
28:06This boundary makes Italy one of Europe's tremor hotspots.
28:11Suffering a devastating earthquake on average roughly every five years.
28:18Pompeii itself had been hit 17 years before the eruption, so it's unlikely that people connected the tremors with the
28:26mountain.
28:28So if the Pompeians didn't know they were living beneath a volcano, how much time did they get to save
28:35themselves when the eruption finally began?
28:45Giuseppe believes he's found a lead in the volcanic fallout.
28:50These little stones are fragments of rock called pumice, ejected from the volcano.
28:58This is fantastic.
29:00Here we can see a sequence of pumice, more than two meter thick sequence, which is the first phase of
29:09the eruption.
29:10So the first material which was erupted from the volcano, this is the best record we have.
29:19Giuseppe thinks these pumice stones might reveal how quickly the eruption took place.
29:25At his laboratory in Naples, Giuseppe and his team take a closer look.
29:33Deep within the rock's microstructure lies the imprint of the eruption itself.
29:40The team uses X-rays to isolate the individual crystals and bubbles of air within it.
29:47This technique allows Giuseppe to decipher the conditions inside the volcano when the pumice was formed.
29:54This will reveal how quickly the magma was expelled.
29:58Here you can see bubbles and crystals which were formed when magma rose from the magma chamber to the surface.
30:08The tiny size of the crystals within the pumice suggest they had very little time to grow.
30:15The formation of these crystals was in the order of hours or less.
30:20The eruption was very quick.
30:23When this eruption started, people had no time to escape.
30:30As the pumice rained down on Pompeii, roofs collapsed under its weight, crushing the people taking shelter below.
30:38But this was only a precursor to a much more deadly force.
30:43What exactly happened during the eruption?
30:46And could new evidence reveal that there may even have been survivors?
31:04The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD shocked and terrified the people of Pompeii.
31:12For years, the town had been rocked by tremors and earthquakes.
31:17Archaeologists believe that its citizens didn't connect the shaking of the ground with the threat of eruption.
31:25Many ignored it until it was too late.
31:28The devastation of the city was rapid and merciless.
31:38But scientists are now uncovering evidence that some people may incredibly have been able to live through the eruption.
31:50When archaeologists excavated Pompeii, they discovered strange cavities inside the ash.
31:58As burned bodies decayed, they left voids in the hardened material.
32:03Eerie imprints of these people's last moments that even captured facial expressions.
32:12Encased in the ash, the victims' bones remained long after their clothes and flesh had gone.
32:20But the blast wasn't hot enough to instantly incinerate the bodies.
32:24So was the temperature at a level that some people could have survived.
32:32Geologist Guido Giordano searches the scorched walls of Pompeii.
32:38He pieces together a detailed picture of exactly what its citizens were up against.
32:46When the volcano erupted, a giant cloud, hovot rocks and ash was fired up to 30 kilometers in height.
32:56People must have been terrified.
33:00As the rocks began to fall, the people of Pompeii would have begun to flee.
33:05But what happened next?
33:09The force of the eruption propelled millions of tons worth of material into the sky.
33:15As the pressure dropped, the rock and ash began to fall.
33:20A cascade of volcanic debris called a pyroclastic flow descended down the mountain on a cushion of air,
33:28flattening everything in its path.
33:31When the column collapsed, producing a huge avalanche, very fast, full of rock debris,
33:38the top layer of that was a giant cloud of searing hot gas and dust.
33:47Anyone who avoided the rock flow would have faced the surge of superheated gas.
33:55For a long time, scientists believed that people still left in the city would have died instantly.
34:04But Guido Giordano and his team want to find out if anyone caught up in the cloud could have survived.
34:14Volcanologists believe that when the pyroclastic flow surged towards Pompeii,
34:18temperatures in the ash cloud exceeded 750 degrees Fahrenheit.
34:24Hot enough to melt lead.
34:29This is an extremely hot temperature, unsurvivable for human beings.
34:36But what happened to those temperatures when the cloud entered the city?
34:41Traveling at over 60 miles per hour, barely touching the ground,
34:46the 750 degree flow reached Pompeii in just a few minutes.
34:51But in the city, any walls still standing could have provided refuge,
34:57shielding some areas from the full force of the blow.
35:04Clues within Pompeii's buildings suggest the temperature of the cloud may have dropped in these pockets of shelter.
35:10Inside some of the houses, you could still find bread or furniture virtually untouched by the heat wave.
35:23So this tells us that the dynamics of the pyroclastic flow, once it entered the city, must have gone through
35:32changes.
35:35Using a pioneering technique, Guido believes he can work out how the ash cloud behaved when it reached Pompeii's streets
35:43and houses.
35:45The secret is locked in the fragile remnants of wood found within pyroclastic deposits.
35:52When wood is transformed into charcoal, its cells dry out. Its surface becomes shiny and reflects light.
36:01A property Guido can measure.
36:05We can convert the intensity of the light reflected into the temperature of the pyroclastic flow.
36:13For Guido, the results are tantalizing.
36:16Some samples were burned at around 750 degrees Fahrenheit, but others burned at a much lower heat.
36:24The temperatures inside Pompeii were actually much more variable than we expected.
36:33In some areas, the heat never got above 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
36:39Guido believes at this temperature, against all odds, people might have lived through the thermal shock.
36:46In local areas of Pompeii, there could have been conditions for survival for human beings.
36:55The possibility that its citizens could have escaped the pyroclastic surges rewrites Pompeii's history.
37:03But in the days following the eruption, their town was consumed by the fallout.
37:09Pompeii was beyond rescue, but its story is only partly told.
37:15What archaeological treasures still hide in the city's last buried areas?
37:20And what threat does Vesuvius pose today?
37:372,000 years ago, Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius.
37:44Torn apart by pyroclastic flows and buried by ash and pumice.
37:50Today, a third of the town still rests in its volcanic grave.
37:58But the new dig is starting to explore this hidden district.
38:02What are Pompeii's last remaining secrets?
38:07Sophie Hay joins Pompeii's Director General Massimo Osana.
38:12His team is about to dig down into what appears to be a townhouse.
38:17So, I see a little glimpse down here of something.
38:21This is the top of the wall, the first wall of our new excavation.
38:26Most of the city's buildings were raised to the ground floor.
38:30But this wall stands 13 feet above street level.
38:34Incredibly, it suggests this home's upper floors may have survived.
38:39In this part of the town, the pyroclastic surge was not so really destructive.
38:46It's really fantastic to understand the ancient architecture.
38:53The exposed brickwork is lined with a seam of plaster.
39:00As the excavation progresses, it reveals richly decorated rooms.
39:06Vivid depictions of birds and sea creatures emerge from the ash.
39:11Shielded from the worst of the heat, this house is a remarkable time capsule.
39:15This new area allows archaeologists to resurrect the city's lost upper levels.
39:23Pompeii still has many more secrets to yield.
39:26But one day, could all this be buried again?
39:34Vesuvius has erupted more than 30 times since it consumed the city.
39:42Giuseppe Mastro Lorenzo and his colleagues at the Vesuvius Observatory watch the mountain for signs of its stirring.
39:50It's not just Vesuvius that threatens the modern Gulf of Naples.
39:54The entire bay is ringed by volcanoes, including Europe's largest, Campi Flegre.
40:05Campi Flegre is a supervolcano.
40:07It is probably the most dangerous volcano in the world.
40:11If Vesuvius or Campi Flegre will erupt, there are at least 3 million people
40:18possibly exposed to the pyroclastic surges and flows.
40:22At the moment, there is not an effective emergency plan for Vesuvius or Campi Flegre.
40:31So there is no way to allow these people to evacuate this area before the eruption.
40:40The potential costs of an eruption today are unimaginably high.
40:46So despite Pompeii's warning from history, why today is the volcano's blast zone more populated than ever?
40:55For the people in the Bay of Naples, the benefits of living here outweigh the risks.
41:01Their ancestors have been making the same calculation for thousands of years.
41:09Volcanoes provide a wealth of benefits at all times and occasionally severe hazards.
41:17The people of the East region have learned to be resilient, to cope with the volcanic hazard.
41:26Vesuvius fostered a thriving population for centuries.
41:31But for the town of Pompeii, luck ran out in 79 AD.
41:36The mountain finally called in the debt.
41:39The ruins are a time capsule, preserving the volcano's cycle of birth and destruction.
41:46Yet despite the danger, people have returned in their millions to live in its shadow.
41:52It's almost inevitable that one day, the pattern will be repeated.
42:00Until next time moves on.
42:00It's opened!
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