Richard Collins: Waiting for the next deadly eruption

Mount Vesuvius erupted on St Patrick’s Day 1944, destroying several villages and damaging US air force bombers on the tarmac at a nearby airfield. The funicular, celebrated in the popular Neapolitan song ‘Funiculi Funicula’, was another victim; it used take sight-seers up the volcano. A previous eruption, in 1906, killed over a hundred people. The next blast from this unpredictable monster is long overdue. Will locals have enough warning to leave the area?

Having entered the world myself just three weeks after the 1944 eruption, I have a morbid fascination with Vesuvius. On a birthday visit to the sleeping giant this month, all was calm in the huge caldera. Puffs of blue smoke and hot gas emerged from cracks here and there.