Dr. Jessica Venner

Okay, so people are still trying to escape hours and hours and hours later.

And then the pyroclastic flows start hitting Pompeii in the early hours of the next day.

So we've gone hours along.

Pompeii's still going and people are still escaping, but there's a lull.

in the pumice flow in the early hours.

It's around sunrise sometime.

There seems to be a lull in the pumice fall.

I know there's the volcanic eruption, but I've got this feeling of this lull in the sound as well.

Because obviously people are screaming and trying to get out, but it's been a long time now and the pumice falling, the rain sound of that would have stopped.

And so people start going back into the city.

Yeah.

And you would.

Why would they know any better?

So anyone that's gone out to the villas outside or further than that are starting to come back because they're looking for their family and friends, because they want to go and get possessions.

They don't know that something else is about to happen and it's going to get a lot worse.

And so in the early hours, around 6am, we think,

A pyroclastic flow falls from the column and it gets to Pompeii and it hits the northern wall, but it doesn't get over the wall.

Yes, this stone wall that has been there for hundreds of years, which was the original boundary of Pompeii, has protected them once again in a funny sort of way.

So this would have really freaked everybody out in there because at this point, breathing would be almost impossible.

They're still trying to pull people out of debris and get people out from places.