This story appears in the September 2007 issue of National Geographic magazine ... "In the eruption that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum, the deaths were instantaneous. People didn't know what ...

Herculaneum and the nearby city of Pompeii were engulfed by the eruption. Buildings and bodies were encased in a flow of molten lava, mud and gas that fell on Herculaneum in AD79 at a speed of at ...