The disaster of Pompeii

By Molly Workman

What happened?

On 24th August 79 AD, MT Vesuvius a volcano which Pompeii was built under erupted literally destroying the whole of the city. Killing all of the people from the toxic gases that they inhaled and then covering them in a hard shell of molten rock. The City got buried by all the falling ash and was left undiscovered for almost 1700 years.

Then finally in 1748 the city was found and began to be uncovered. Though all these years later in 2011 the amazing city has still not been fully recovered.

Pompeii victims

PEOPLE PRAYING WHILE DYING…

SUFFERING WHILE DYING…

The young died…

AS WELL AS EVERYONE ELSE…

Where the eruption effected

Pyroclastic flow

A Pyroclastic flow is the final natural disasters that finished off Pompeii. A Pyroclastic flow is a is fast moving currant of extremely hot gas and rock, which can reach temperatures of about 1,000 C or 1830 F. So when travelling down the volcano at hundreds of miles per hour it destroys and basically disintegrates every thing in its way and unluckily for Pompeii it was in the way of this Pyroclastic flow…

Though before the final Pyroclastic flow there was one before that in Herculanium`s beach where many people had fled Pompeii. One of the victims form there was a six year old slave girl who was caring for a six month old baby (this was proved at the sight once the bodies was found).

Pliny`s accountThere are things we wouldn't know about the Pompeii disasters if it

was not for the letters written by Pliny the younger, who watched the volcanic eruption from afar while his uncle Pliny elder went to Pompeii to get a closer look at the volcano. Pliny younger described in detail what happened from his view when MT Vesuvius erupted. Though he was not able to write what happened after because he died in the eruption as well. Pliny was born 61/2 AD and died in 79 AD the nephew of Pliny the elder.

A few years after the event, Pliny wrote a friend, Cornelius Tacitus, describing the happenings of late August 79 AD when the eruption of Vesuvius obliterated Pompeii, killed his Uncle and almost destroyed his family. At the time, Pliny was eighteen and living at his Uncle's villa in the town of Misenum. Pliny wrote many letters to Tacitus about the Pompeii disaster this is a small part of what he wrote:

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Cornelius Tacitus

`Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. 'Let us leave the road while we can still see, 'I said, ‘or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind. ‘We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room.

You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.`

Roman gods and beliefs

Neptune- God of the sea Venus-Goddess of love

Mercury- Messenger of the Gods Proserpine - Goddess of the Underworld

During the volcanic eruption and as all the people from Pompeii died they believed that this was the act from there gods come to punish them for something they have done. Here are some of them: