Release Date: December 6, 2007 BUFFALO, N.Y. -- In the spring of
2006, a paper published in a scientific journal by researchers
at the University at Buffalo and two scientific institutions in
Italy reported that approximately 4,000 years ago during the
Bronze Age, Vesuvius produced an eruption that devastated the
area now occupied by metropolitan Naples. The authors suggested
that this event -- more powerful than the famous Pompeii
eruption -- should be a reference for current hazard planning
for metropolitan Naples, home to more than 3 million people. It
wasn't exactly welcome news in Naples, where hazard mitigation
plans did not include the possibility that the next eruption of
Vesuvius might pose a serious threat to Naples. The public
debate that ensued, and which is still ongoing, is explored in
an episode of the History Channel's "Mega Disasters" series
called "The Next Pompeii?" which airs Saturday (Dec. 8, 2007) at
4 p.m. EST. Filmed in part at the Center for Computational
Research in UB's New York Sta