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Pompeii

STORY PREFACE

http://awesomestories.com/images/user/1066199d36.jpg
                   Photograph depicting Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii.  Online courtesy Wikimedia Commons.




For several days before (the eruption)
the earth had been shaken, but this fact
did not cause fear because it was a
commonly observed feature in Campania.

Quote from Pliny the Younger
Eyewitness to Vesuvius Eruption
24-25 August 79 A.D.

 

It was lunch time in the ancient Italian city of Pompeii. Vesuvius, the nearby volcano, was about to begin 19 hours of spectacular eruptions.

All the people in the 600-year-old town of 20,000 could have escaped. There had been time to flee. But in 79 A.D., no one recognized the inherent danger of the mountain’s warnings.

By the time Vesuvius stopped belching poisonous gas, the bustling city of Pompeii was silent, completely buried by volcanic ash and debris. It remained silent for 1700 years.

 

 

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Original Release Date:  August, 2002
Updated Quarterly, or as Needed