On August 24, 79, a strange cloud of smoke appeared on the top of mount Vesuvius. The cloud looked like a huge pillar, stretching upward and growing larger and darker. Then the earth began to tremble and moan violently, and houses collapsed like men with broken knees. People panicked and fled around. The strong smell of sulfur mixed with volcanic ash in the atmosphere choked and killed many people on the run. Almost everyone believed that the end of the world had come and everything on earth would be destroyed completely.
The eruption lasted for 18 hours, then the darkness receded and daylight returned. Four cities, including Pompeii and Herculaneum, were buried deep underground by the hot ash. Pompeii, the thousand-year-old city, vanished overnight.
It took a long time for the volcano to cool down. After this catastrophe, the wranglers found that the familiar prosperous Pompeii with dozens of thousand hectares of croplands, forests and farms disappeared. There was nothing but a long, scorched area like a river left by the cooling lava of the volcano.
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