THE erruption.
On August 24, 0079, Mt. Vesuvius took the Italian city of Pompeii by surprise. While the townspeople were sleeping, a huge cloud was forming and a disaster was waiting. When they woke up, a massive blanket of smoke covered there town and they had no idea what happened. The one survivor of Pompeii wrote in a letter to his friend:
"My uncle was stationed at Misenum, in active command of the fleet. On 24 August, in the early afternoon, my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. He had been out in the sun, had taken a cold bath, and lunched while lying down, and was then working at his books. He called for his shoes and climbed up to a place which would give him the best view of the phenomenon. It was not clear at that distance from which mountain the cloud was rising (it was afterwards known to be Vesuvius); its general appearance can best be expressed as being like an umbrella pine, for it rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches, I imagine because it was thrust upwards by the first blast and then left unsupported as the pressure subsided, or else it was borne down by its own weight so that it spread out and gradually dispersed. In places it looked white, elsewhere blotched and dirty, according to the amount of soil and ashes it carried with it."
It is believed the most common causes of death during Pompeii was suffocation of ashes and heat exposure. The city was covered in 25 layers of magma and the city wasn't dug up until 1700 years later.