Guatemala’s Fuego volcano erupted explosively on June 3, sending hot gas and rock racing downhill in what’s known as a pyroclastic flow. At least 69 people were killed. Emergency officials are trying to reach buried villages to assess the scope of the disaster, but Fuego is already the world’s deadliest eruption of 2018.
The tragedy offers a grim reminder of the many dangers posed by volcanic eruptions. While pyroclastic flows figure prominently in an exhaustive list published last year by British scientists, there are many other potential threats including toxic gas and lava flows. The scientists analyzed how nearly 280,000 people have died in eruptions, including about 62,600 deaths from indirect causes such as famine and disease in the aftermath, since the year 1500.
Nearly half of the total number of direct deaths, or about 125,000, came from just seven eruptions. They include the 1883 eruption of Krakatau, in Indonesia, that swept away approximately 36,000 in a tsunami triggered by the eruption. The 1815 eruption of Tambora, also in Indonesia, killed an estimated 12,000 people right away. (Indonesia has more people living near active volcanoes than any other country.)
Globally, there are around 1,500 active volcanoes, with about 800 million people living within 100 kilometers of one. The new database breaks out information on how far from each eruption people have died.