500 Killed Each Year By Volcanoes

Earthquakes and volcanoes have dominated my posts lately but I find that stuff extremely interesting…so here we go again!

Most of us go through our days without worrying about the possible volcanic eruption but volcanoes kill about 540 people per year. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Volcanology, researchers took on the gargantuan task of studying every death from every volcano eruption on earth in the last 617 years. That includes the 57 killed by the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens.

They found local residents are most commonly killed by volcanoes, and by local that would mean the potential of over 29 million people worldwide who live within 6.2 miles of active volcanoes.

The deadliest eruption killed by side effect. The 1883 eruption of Krakatau in Indonesia was heard 3-thousand miles away and spawned a tsunami that killed 36,000 people.

This study was conducted as part of a United Nations project designed to promote a greater understanding of disaster risk and the reduction of mortality from disasters by the year 2030.