Biggest City Near Active Volcano

[jharvey963]

@Silophant

Not researched at all, but I’d think Honolulu or Seattle. Is Mount Fuji active?

Actually, Honolulu is on Oahu, with no active volcanos. The active volcanos in Hawaii are on the Big Island. Eyeballing it on Google Maps puts Honolulu almost 200 miles away from the volcano.

[Polycarp]

Out of curiosity, I seem to remember a dormant volcano looming over the Osaka-Kyoto metropolitan area in stuff I read some time ago. Anyone with adequate knowledge of Japan’s physical geography to identify it and indicate where it fits in this scheme of things?

[Yossarian]

There’s an official list (IAVCEI)–behold the Decade Volcanoes. At a glance, Naples appears to be the biggest city on the list.

Avachinsky-Koryaksky, Kamchatka, Russia
Colima, Jalisco and Colima, Mexico
Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy
Galeras, Nariño, Colombia
Mauna Loa, Hawaii, USA
Mount Merapi, Central Java, Indonesia
Mount Nyiragongo, Democratic Republic of Congo
Mount Rainier, Washington, USA
Sakurajima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan
Santamaria/Santiaguito, Guatemala
Santorini, Cyclades, Greece
Taal Volcano, Luzon, Philippines
Teide, Canary Islands, Spain
Ulawun, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Mount Unzen, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
Vesuvius, Naples, Italy

[Zsofia]

I read an article in National Geographic about Vesuvius and the fact that it has erupted prehistorically in a much, MUCH bigger way than Pliny’s eruption. If that happens again, none of Naples stands a chance at all, not just the suburbs on the volcanic slopes.

[Geek_Mecha]

@jharvey963

Actually, Honolulu is on Oahu, with no active volcanos. The active volcanos in Hawaii are on the Big Island. Eyeballing it on Google Maps puts Honolulu almost 200 miles away from the volcano.

Not only that, but there are multiple islands between the islands of Oahu and Hawaii. It’d have to be one determined eruption to make it all the way to Honolulu.

[Anne_Neville]

@AudreyK

Not only that, but there are multiple islands between the islands of Oahu and Hawaii. It’d have to be one determined eruption to make it all the way to Honolulu.

A tsunami generated by an eruption could do it, though. Of course, so could a tsunami generated by an earthquake or volcanic eruption anywhere in the Pacific.

[hibernicus]

@jjimm

Nowhere near as large a population as Naples, but the city of Kagoshima in Japan is pretty spectacularly close to an active volcano. The volcano, Sakurajima, smokes most of the time and the city is almost permanently dusted in fine white ash, which sometimes falls like snow, and every so often there are eruptions of lava.

I’ve stayed on Sakurajima. The children wear yellow helmets when walking to school, and there are concrete culverts at intervals along the road to take shelter in the event of an eruption. Once a year they have an evacuation drill.

[DooWahDiddy]

@Colophon

Vesuvius is not puny.
People live right up the slopes of the volcano. If and when it does decide to go bang, things would get rather interesting rather quickly.

I’ve walked up Mt. Vesuvius, and let me tell you, the thing was smoking. No, literally. We got to the top, looked in, and smoke was emanating from the craters inside it. Now, we were told this was not entirely uncommon, but we still hightailed it out of there.