Think lava’s bad? Get a load of a pyroclastic flow [video]
Posted by staff / May 27, 2016
As if volcanoes weren’t terrifying enough, this footage of a pyroclastic flow, which occurred in Japan in 1991, will have you looking warily at every supposedly dormant volcano you see.
The hot gas and rock explosion sends a wave of deadly debris shooting down the valley, and the scene is made even more dramatic when the TV crew catches footage of a man fleeing from the scene.
Wikipedia provides more background on the commentary regarding fatalities due to the eruption:
A pyroclastic surge killed volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft and 41 other people on Mount Unzen, in Japan, on June 3, 1991. The surge started as a pyroclastic flow and the more energised surge climbed a spur on which the Kraffts and the others were standing…
The French couple spent their careers on the edge of volcanoes, knowing their time could be cut short at any point. Their own Wikipedia entry includes the following eerily prescient anecdote:
Maurice famously says in that video that “I am never afraid because I have seen so many eruptions in 23 years that even if I die tomorrow, I don’t care”, coincidentally on the day before his, and his wife’s death at Mt. Unzen.
Full story at YouTube and Wikipedia via Boing Boing.
There is lava under all that dust. I guess the people who were running away quickly already knew that.
There is no lava beneath a pyroclastic flow. It is made up of a dense combination of hot gas and rock that is around 1,000 degrees, and can reach speeds of around 400 mph. Hot molten rock (lava) cannot move that quickly.
No lava, just super heated gas and debris…over 1000F in most cases.