North Koreans believe that Mount Paektu is sacred.
A thousand years ago Mt. Paektu erupted, and people in Japan were able to see the event that happened at the border of China and North Korea. Ever since then, the giant volcano remained inactive, and people started to believe that it will stay like this forever. But a team of international scientists discovered recently that Mount Paektu could erupt again, and if it does, the world is going to know it.
There are different classes of volcanos in the world. Some are more dangerous than others. Take for example Vesuvius, the active volcano that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD. The eruption was massive, and it managed to bury an entire city in a just a matter of hours.
Upon analyzing the petrified remains of the inhabitants of the city, researchers even discovered that some were caught in the lava while running, their movement being preserved in time by the molten rock.
The disaster that the Vesuvius eruption caused was of massive proportions. And the volcano is only rated five on the Index of Volcanic Explosivity. For a better grasp of the catastrophic potential of the volcano, just think about the fact that one ranked eight is dubbed a super volcano by scientists, a force of nature that could affect the whole world in the case of an eruption.
Mount Paektu, on the other hand, is rated seven. This means that the giant, 9,000 feet tall volcano can wreak havoc in the case it decides to act up again. And unfortunately for the inhabitants of the Asian continent, a team of British, Chinese, and North Korean researchers established that Mount Paektu could erupt again.
What is weirder is that the mountain shouldn’t even be a volcano. The majority of these peaks are located on the convergence site of two or more tectonic plates. When the plates move, lava from beneath the earth’s surface starts piling up because of the pressure, finally erupting.
But Mount Paektu is situated nowhere near such a place. The sacred Korean mountain is a freak of nature, a giant, very dangerous, and still active geographical abnormality. And unfortunately, the researchers discovered that Mount Paektu could erupt again.
The good news is that if the volcano starts acting up, the people of China and North Korea will have time to take action before it erupts because there are numerous seismometers planted in the region, and there is a team of scientists constantly analyzing seismic and activity data from the mountain.
Image source: Wikimedia
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