Volcanic eruption could lead to ‘complete collapse of civilisation’: Scientist

A new book has warned of a ‘complete collapse of civilisation’ if humankind fails to shield itself from a major volcanic eruption. In ‘Eruptions That Shook The World’,Cambridge University’s Dr Clive Oppenheimer,who first predicted an aviation crisis caused by ash from Iceland 10 years ago but was denied funding as it was deemed ‘unlikely’,has revealed that a major eruption would cause failure of crops,climate change and millions of deaths.“Everytime a major disaster like the tsunami happens,we say that’s a wake-up call,we should have thought about that,” the Daily Star quoted him as saying.

“No-one can tell when and where these things are going to happen so politicians think it is very unlikely to happen on their watch and they think they can get away with it,” he said.

“But every now and then we won’t get away with it. If we don’t prepare then we will get caught out and things will be much worse than they should have been,” he warned.

“In the case of a super-volcano you could have complete collapse of civilisation around the world in the very worst case scenario,” he added.