Mount Vesuvius has gained infamy for wiping out the entire city of Pompeii in 79 A.D. The same volcano also buried alive in ash some 6,000 people in 1631.
Italian officials are now warning that these historic disasters can be repeated at an even more massive scale.
According to them, half of the three million population of the Italian city of Naples are now at risk of experiencing a volcanic disaster from Mount Vesuvius.
Sixty-three other new towns and villages are also included in the list of areas deemed vulnerable in case Mount Vesuvius erupts.
Italian disaster officials have warned that residents living within the expanded "yellow" danger zone—which now stretches across the provinces of Naples and Salerno—may experience dangerous ash falls and falling rocks which can topple entire buildings if Mount Vesuvius erupts.
Aside from these, some 600,000 residents are also within the volcano's "red danger zone," which faces the threat of a more apocalyptic scenario should Mount Vesuvius unleash its fury.
Areas in the volcano's direct path of destruction may experience scalding lava flows, clouds of burning gas, and an avalanche of ash and rocks rolling down Mount Vesuvius' slope at terrifying speeds of up to 200mph hour.
In an interview with The Independent, city council spokesman Domenico Annunziata warned that the destruction may reach areas even beyond the danger zones in case of a very powerful eruption.
"The experts have said that in the event of a big eruption and in certain atmospheric conditions, the ash and powder could reach these places further away," Annunziata said, as quoted by The Daily Mail.
He, however, said the effects on areas not in the volcano's danger zones will only be minimal, and should not be a cause for concern among Italians.
"There's no need to be alarmist. We're talking about falling powder, so it wouldn't be devastating," the Italian official explained.
An emergency plan is also in place to evacuate the residents in the danger zones within 72 hours of the volcano's increased activity.
