Earth’s inhabitants live in menacing shadow of volcanic dangers

August 21, 2012AFRICA Planet Earth is riddled with unmonitored volcanoes. Many could erupt with scant notice to the world, causing anything from minor inconveniences to famines or catastrophic death and destruction. Yet when they blow up, these little-known volcanoes don’t usually make headlines for two reasons: 1) The people affected by the eruptions are poor, few in number and tend to be ignored by the world at large, and 2) the remote locations of the volcanoes and lack of monitoring equipment make details of eruptions scarce. One very unusual example of such a volcano is Ol Doinyo Lengai of Tanzania. The name means “Mountain of God.” After spending the previous four decades in relative rest, the mountain erupted violently in late 2007 and continued erupting through early 2008 with the coldest lava on Earth. Still, it’s lava and it made life pretty difficult when the ash and rocks rained down on nearby Masai villages like Naiyobi, seen in this image. The villages were evacuated for a while. When people returned they found their water fouled and many grazing lands unusable — a hard blow for people who depend on their cattle for their living. –Discovery

5 Responses to Earth’s inhabitants live in menacing shadow of volcanic dangers

  1. Lilly says:

    Unfortunately there are many events or happenings in the world which go unreported – usually because of reason such as that provided in this report.
    This site (EP) is one I visit everyday to keep up with the many important events/happenings, many of those which are unreported elsewhere.
    Bless you and thankyou for all the information you offer here.😉


  2. Irene C says:

    I know that living here could be risky, but this is a beautiful area. It looks so peaceful.


  3. While many of earth’s volcanoes are in low population areas in the third world, there are still plenty in populated areas in modern countries. Maybe once some of these volcanoes begin to erupt and cause widespread damage, people will start to take these mountains seriously. one of the benefits of volcanism is that the ground surrounding these peaks tends to be nutrient-rich farmland, which draws people to these areas like moths to a flame.




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