ABSTRACT
Volcanoes attract human settlement and it is the increase in exposed risk, rather than the frequency of eruptions, that explains the doubling of fatal eruptions from the nineteenth to the twentieth century (Simkin et al., 2001). According to Small and Naumann (2001), 10 per cent of the world’s population already live within 100 km of a volcano active in historic times. The highest population densities at risk are in south-east Asia and central America although, in Europe, the Etna region contains about 20 per cent of Sicily’s population with rural population densities between 500-800 per km2. Countries like Indonesia, located at the junction of three tectonic plates with a population of over 150 million, face the greatest threat and this nation has suffered two-thirds of all volcano-related deaths (Suryo and Clarke, 1985). In 1815 a massive eruption of the Tambora volcano directly killed 12,000 people and a further 80,000 persons later perished through disease and famine.
