😱Volcanoes That Could Wreck Europe:😭When Will the “Nation-Killers” Erupt?

Suddenly, over a volcano that had long been considered dormant, a dark cloud rose, the sky darkened, and then clumps of ash erupted from the volcano, completely obscuring the sun, plunging the area into total darkness. A terrifying roar echoed, and a “rain” of stones and ash began to fall.

This horrifying scene, unfortunately, is not a product of imagination but a rather mild description of how a long-forgotten mountain, once thought to be dormant, could one day awaken. Some volcanoes are already sending alarming signals.

The Killer on the Paradise Island
One such quiet volcano is Santorini, located on the island of the same name in the Aegean Sea. Around the middle of the second millennium BC, this volcano destroyed an entire civilization that lived there. The “creator” of the island, the Santorini volcano, caused much of it to collapse, with the center of the island sinking underwater to a depth of several hundred meters.
Now, the volcano is showing signs of seismic activity, which has alarmed experts.
“I think the situation is very concerning. Santorini is a very serious, large volcano. I saw reports of seismic events, and this looks like a ‘swarm of earthquakes’ that precedes an eruption,” said one expert.
The situation is further complicated by the apparent lack of high-level volcanologists in Greece who could respond quickly in the event of a worst-case scenario.
“It could happen that a volcano erupts in the middle of the Mediterranean, and it wasn’t predicted—not because we can’t predict it, but simply because there’s no one to do it,” shared a professor from Moscow State University’s geological department.

The potential consequences of an eruption are only speculative at this point. Sadly, this is far from the only volcano in Europe making itself known.

The Supervolcano That Destroyed the Neanderthals
In the year before last, the Campi Flegrei volcano, located near Naples, raised concerns among experts. It poses a threat to millions of Italians who live right on top of it.
Campi Flegrei is not your typical volcano; it is a caldera—an area of several dozen square kilometers, densely populated with houses.
In 2023, it greatly alarmed seismologists.
An eruption could occur soon, and researchers from University College London and Italy’s National Research Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) are deeply concerned.
The volcano shakes, the ground beneath it rises, smoke seeps out, and it weakens. It seems on the verge of erupting. Beneath the caldera, molten magma is moving, and if something happens, it could even reach London.

Fortunately, the volcanologists’ concerns have not yet come to pass, though their worries are not unfounded: it was the incredible eruption of Campi Flegrei around 40,000 years ago that, according to some experts, wiped out the Neanderthals.
Some perished during the eruption, while others succumbed to the catastrophic climate changes that followed. Thousands of tons of ash and rock spewed into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun and triggering a “nuclear winter.”

The Threat of Planetary-scale Volcanoes
There are also volcanoes that pose a threat on a planetary scale.
Fortunately, the likelihood of such an eruption is extremely low—only a fraction of a percent.
But if this giant begins to erupt, a new ice age could set in on Earth, with all the devastating consequences that would entail.
A Yellowstone earthquake could trigger the eruption of several hundred volcanoes around the world, which would, in turn, create numerous tsunamis, wiping out cities along both the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines.