By Mollie Stevens

It was just a normal day for the citizens of Pompeii, till disaster struck. Later on that day, Mount Vesuvius erupted for the first time in more than 400 years. The people who lived in Pompeii, had no idea what to do, having never had to worry about this kind of disaster before. People from the village Stabiae, attempted to save people of the village, by sailing over there, but unfortunately, no one survived the vigorous attack. The whole city was destroyed, with people being trapped underground and in caves, with impossible escape roots. Throughout this slide show, you will find out much more detail about this very shocking and sudden attack.

Here are a few facts about Mount Vesuvius before the eruption in Pompeii: Before the big eruption, the people who lived in Pompeii, didn’t actually know that the volcano was actually a volcano. The longer a volcano sleeps the deadlier the eruption. The citizens of Pompeii had clear signs the volcano was going to erupt, by the earthquakes, ground rising up and the underground springs drying up, but the people didn’t know how to read these signs or understand what they meant. From beginning to end, the eruption only took around 24 hours. ] In 1631, Mount Vesuvius killed over 4,000 people. The rubble which fell onto the people in Pompeii included, pumice, large rocks and ash. Mount Vesuvius stands in the middle of an older and large eroded cone named Mount Somma. Half of this is still visible on the east side of Vesuvius.

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. We pick up his story as he describes the warning raised by his mother: "My uncle was stationed at Misenum, in active command of the fleet. On 24 August, in the early afternoon, my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. He had been out in the sun, had taken a cold bath, and lunched while lying down, and was then working at his books. He called for his shoes and climbed up to a place which would give him the best view of the phenomenon. It was not clear at that distance from which mountain the cloud was rising (it was afterwards known to be Vesuvius); its general appearance can best be expressed as being like an umbrella pine, for it rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches, I imagine because it was thrust upwards by the first blast and then left unsupported as the pressure subsided, or else it was borne down by its own weight so that it spread out and gradually dispersed. In places it looked white, elsewhere blotched and dirty, according to the amount of soil and ashes it carried with it. “

Some examples of Gods are :