There were 64 acknowledged active volcanoes in 2010. Some of these mountains have been active with eruptions over long periods of time. But sometimes they awaken suddenly, often with violent consequence to life around.  And sometimes volcanoes are new born and develop over a short period of time. They can be likened to the boils and eruptions on the skin of the Earth.

The damage done to the environment around as in the case of St Helens in the U,S is obvious regarding vegetation but should it have been densely peopled it would have been a terrible account of many human deaths.

Sometimes evacuation is possible from danger areas. Sometimes it is not possible to cope with numbers or with transport.

We tend to think that volcanologists should have known sufficient from their monitoring to warn us well in advance should an eruption become immanent. But whatever their skills, Nature holds surprise powers in store so we must remain alert if we live in an area known as a danger zone. Better still, we should seriously think of changing our place of residence.

Volcanic eruptions usually do not get prime time in news or television unless they are threatening lives and few of us are aware of the numbers of earthquakes and volcanic activity that happens and is happening this very minute in some part of the world. However the recent great and ongoing eruptions in Iceland made people acutely aware, particularly anyone who lived in the path of the immense clouds of matter spewed out over Europe or those who were inconvenience because air flights were cancelled because of the danger of the smoke and sharp particles that would threaten aircraft jet engines.

To illustrate the frequency of volcanic activity worldwide and this is possible nowadays because of technology and improved monitoring services, in this month of February and this date, 15^th February, 2011 there have already been reports of volcanic eruptions  in Guatemala, Colombia, Japan, Congo, Russia, Hawaii, Mexico, Indonesia and Chile.

Tags: danger areas, many countries, many eruptions, need to monitor, volcanic happenings

Filed under: Environment by admin