Volcanoes: why running away is best
Tuesday November 27, 2007
The November Geotimes has an article on volcano hazards with a different twist: a focus on their medical consequences. The specific features of an eruption—its ash clouds, pyroclastic flows, tsunamis or whatever—make a big difference in whether you roast, or drown, or suffocate or get conked to death on the head. But one thing is distinctive to volcanoes that is not true of, say, earthquakes: many volcanic hazards are quite lethal, not just injurious, and resistance is futile. Authors Joanne Feldman (an emergency medicine specialist) and Robert Tilling (a volcanologist) say that "the dead-to-injured ratio is so dismal that evacuation prior to the eruption is the only way to truly mitigate the risk from volcano hazards."
Comments
I think another unique aspect of volcanic hazards is how predictable the destruction will be. I am not saying we are at 100%, but by and large we know where the lahars and ash clouds will go, what structures and settlements are in danger, etc… This means it is relatively straightforward to decided on “safe” locations well ahead of the big ka-boom. Some odd things happen (St. Helens blowing sideways), but the windows of eruption time and destruction path are much smaller than in almost any other geologic hazard.
I think that’s very true, but not unique. Geologists can help a lot in mapping flood and landslide hazards, too. I also think we’ll be amazed, when the first serious asteroid threat comes, with the precision possible for modeling cosmic impacts beforehand. But volcano warnings can claim great progress in recent years that will elude the earthquake community for decades to come.