When magma bubbles up toward Earth’s surface and meets groundwater, steam pressure builds, sometimes bursting into eruptions that spew currents of hot ash, potentially burning and asphyxiating people and burying nearby cities. Take, for example, similar ash currents that formed during the eruptions at Mount Vesuvius, which were responsible for many of the fatalities in the city of Pompeii around 79 C.E.
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Source: Phys.org