The most pessimistic experts suggest it may be time to consider relocation, forcing residents to make a tough choice: Should I stay or should I go?
The crisis has intensified debate in Italy's scientific community over the extent of the threat posed by the monster, eight-mile-wide volcano, dotted with more than 20 craters and believed to have produced some of the most violent eruptions in prehistoric Europe. There are no signs of a sudden rise in magma that would signal an imminent eruption. But volcanic activity is highly unpredictable, with new periods of volcanic earthquakes and measurable surface rises of up to two centimetres per month raising concerns.
Eruptions could range from limited explosions like the one that upended a trail in Yellowstone National Park last month to devastating damage, and experts say the plain could be more destructive than the historic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, which destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD.
Many scientists have warned about a possible tipping point, but none more so than Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo, a senior researcher at Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), who openly battles his own institution for not taking the threat seriously enough. In his worst-case scenario, a deep fissure opens in the earth, spewing a mushroom cloud of toxic gases, superheated ash, and pyroclastic material. At night, the ejecta is engulfed in lightning. A menacing black veil covers the coastline. Then, a white-gray ash and rocks cover the land.
He said even a much smaller but still powerful eruption “could devastate the entire Naples metropolitan area, with its 3 million inhabitants.”
“The pressure could be released like a bomb,” he said, standing under the scorching sun and looking down at the giant crater lake formed by the last major eruption of Mount Phlegraean in 1538.
Some of his own bosses, as well as Pozzuoli's mayor, Luigi Manzoni, dismiss such talk as fear-mongering and insist there is no need to abandon the sun-kissed land now. The danger is serious but manageable, and fears of a major eruption are remote. The bigger threat, they say, is a new wave of volcanic earthquakes, which they believe can be managed without costly evacuations and reinforcing buildings, as was done the last time the Phlegraean field erupted, in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, Italy's governments are sending conflicting messages. On the one hand, Rome imposed a temporary building ban last month, with a powerful minister saying it was “criminal” to allow people to settle in the shadow of such a threat. But Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also seems to be encouraging them to stay. She has bowed to local politicians and is pushing ahead with a 1.2 billion euro redevelopment of desolate coastal areas at risk from the volcano, building new urban parks, land reclamation projects and new housing and infrastructure.
“In Pozzuoli the threat has always been there,” Manzoni said. “We have to learn to live with it.”
Italy is the most volcanically active country on the European continent, and two of the country's most active volcanoes are in the midst of minor eruptions. On the southern island of Stromboli, the volcano of the same name is spewing lava with more aggression than aggression. In Sicily, the imposing Mount Etna is erupting, causing minor inconvenience rather than panic for the general public.
And Campi Flegrei (or Phlegraean Field in English) is a volcano with almost half of its caldera in the Mediterranean Sea. Rock samples suggest that a major eruption here 39,000 years ago triggered the volcanic winter associated with the extinction of Neanderthals in Europe.
Magma beneath Phlegraean Ground isn't rising, but the volcano is becoming more dangerous, said Giovanni Chiodini, a retired geochemist who oversees geochemical monitoring of the area and has published academic papers on Phlegraean Ground. The volcano's magma is decompressing, releasing gases and steam that are rising through the rock and liquefying.
“If we were talking about a volcano in Antarctica, we would all say it's heading for an eruption,” Chiodini said, suggesting there might be a reluctance to sound the alarm in densely populated areas like Italy.
Chiodini said the volcano is just as likely to erupt as it is to subside, but it's the uncertainty that's causing anxiety. No one knows how much warning residents will get. In the 1538 eruption, earthquakes were so violent and consecutive that ancient residents had days, even weeks, to evacuate. The current assessment plan, now being tweaked for speed and efficiency, assumes it would take 72 hours to evacuate 500,000 people to safety.
But Mastrolorenzo argues that an eruption could happen with just hours of notice and threaten the greater Naples region, Italy's third-largest city, which may not be prepared. Residents say evacuations during May's earthquake were harrowing, with some drivers stuck in traffic and forced to walk to the safety of the coast. Only a handful of people took part in the subsequent evacuation.
Pozzuoli's Maccellum, the remains of an ancient marketplace with its rows of columns, has risen and fallen over the decades as volcanic activity has caused the ground on which it stands to rise and fall. The site is currently undergoing a period of rise again, recording a rise of 2-4 centimetres per month since last year, but this is still far short of the 14 metres rise recorded in less than a year before the 1538 eruption.
INGV director Carlo Doglioni said the land uplift is not as dramatic as the last major volcanic activity here 40 years ago. Residents should be worried, he said, but criticized Mastrolorenzo's pessimistic comments. A yellow alert has been issued for the region. But current measurements do not suggest “that people should evacuate at this time,” he said.
“Mastrolorenzo wants to stand out, to attract attention,” he said. But it would also be “wrong” to underestimate the risks, Mr. Doglioni said. Asked if people should leave Pozzuoli, he said: “Personally I don't want to live there.”
At 1:46 p.m. on July 26, Andrea Vitale, a 67-year-old retired teacher, froze in the kitchen of his apartment built into the caldera of the Phlegraean field. He heard a loud noise and felt the building shake as if it was riding a wave. In the living room, his young granddaughter screamed. His pit bull mix, Baloo, barked incessantly. Cracks appeared in the living room wall.
“Nobody knew about it in Pompeii,” he says, “but the threat is clear to us. If they find us among the ashes, they'll say so.”
July's magnitude 4.0 quake was the second major one in two months. A 4.4 magnitude quake on May 20 caused even more damage, destroying three schools, a women's prison and forcing the evacuation of more than 100 homes. Some, like Vitale, have homes that were reinforced when neighbors were evacuated for 18 months in the 1980s. But some of those structures are starting to crack.
Civil society groups say local authorities are deliberately downplaying the threat and that the state should do more, for example by providing additional and faster assistance for repairs and help to residents who want to relocate.
“The government is more worried about the economy, so they are downplaying the problem so as not to scare the people,” said Laura Rovinelli, head of the Campi Flegrei civil society group.
Italy's Civil Protection Minister, Nello Musumeci, acknowledged that the government's plans for major redevelopment in nearby towns in the red zone seem at odds with efforts to block new construction there. Local authorities have been paying residents living in temporary housing since the May earthquake, and the state has approved subsidies to help with construction. But Musumeci said the state cannot cover all the costs, suggesting that residents who choose to live there will have to share the costs.
As tourists thin out, restaurants have closed and business has slumped. Rossana Maureli, 56, said sales at her family's ceramics shop, which sells items such as plates decorated with flames from volcanic eruptions, have fallen 60 to 70 percent since last year.
She knows the risks. Now, her local beach is the only place she feels safe, she said, and she goes there every day because sometimes she sits in her apartment and imagines the walls collapsing.
But she can't imagine leaving Pozzuoli, her family's home for generations.
“We love this place,” she said. “Our business is here, our home is here.”
