I'm playing around with ideas for scenarios and I was curious if people had any suggestions regarding this one...

 

2016: A worst case scenario for Italy. Forget the sword of Damocles; you should worry about his mountain. Vesuvius explodes. And it's a bad one, about as powerful as the Avellino eruption of c. 1600 B.C., several times more powerful than the one that wiped out Pompeii. Tragically, the eruption came with relatively little warning, and the Italian government simply was not ready to handle the evacuation. As the volcanic dust clears, the horrifying damage is revealed: at least a quarter of a million people are dead, another half-million are injured, more than a million are homeless, and a swath of destruction runs from Naples (which has been virtually destroyed) to Salerno and Benevento. It is probably the single worst natural disaster in European history.

 

So, a few questions....

 

1) What happens to Italy, politically and economically, after this kind of disaster? I can't even begin to imagine the value of property, factories, harbors, etc. that would be wiped out. It's probably in the tens of billions, if not more.

 

2) What happens to the E.U., politically and economically, if this happened? Italy is a pretty important member of the E.U. How badly would the E.U. be weakened by something like this?

 

3) Could the pressures created by this disaster cause a break-up of the E.U., or cause some nations to withdraw ("Why should we pay for Italy's failure to plan for a disaster?"), or spark some other crisis?

 

In short, what kind of political crises, rivalries, etc. might be caused by Italy taking this kind of economic and political body blow? Could something like this lead to a war, big or small, in, say, 2018 or 2020? Any other thoughts on this?

 

Thanks in advance. I look forward to your comments.

 

Mark

I think the EU don't needs any natural disaster to break up ...

And any political/natural disaster/alternative history excuse, slightly coherent and slightly well narrated, is good for planify a scenario (as the screenplay in the p*rn movies )

I'm playing around with ideas for scenarios and I was curious if people had any suggestions regarding this one...

 

2016: A worst case scenario for Italy. Forget the sword of Damocles; you should worry about his mountain. Vesuvius explodes. And it's a bad one, about as powerful as the Avellino eruption of c. 1600 B.C., several times more powerful than the one that wiped out Pompeii. Tragically, the eruption came with relatively little warning, and the Italian government simply was not ready to handle the evacuation. As the volcanic dust clears, the horrifying damage is revealed: at least a quarter of a million people are dead, another half-million are injured, more than a million are homeless, and a swath of destruction runs from Naples (which has been virtually destroyed) to Salerno and Benevento. It is probably the single worst natural disaster in European history.

 

So, a few questions....

 

1) What happens to Italy, politically and economically, after this kind of disaster? I can't even begin to imagine the value of property, factories, harbors, etc. that would be wiped out. It's probably in the tens of billions, if not more.

 

2) What happens to the E.U., politically and economically, if this happened? Italy is a pretty important member of the E.U. How badly would the E.U. be weakened by something like this?

 

3) Could the pressures created by this disaster cause a break-up of the E.U., or cause some nations to withdraw ("Why should we pay for Italy's failure to plan for a disaster?"), or spark some other crisis?

 

In short, what kind of political crises, rivalries, etc. might be caused by Italy taking this kind of economic and political body blow? Could something like this lead to a war, big or small, in, say, 2018 or 2020? Any other thoughts on this?

 

Thanks in advance. I look forward to your comments.

 

Mark

What an awful idea, but then they are the best for this kind of thing.

Maybe countries wouldn't want to pull out but dump the crippled Italy. Would it be the strong wealthy ones (that don't want their hard earned money 'wasted' on rebuilding) or would it be the poorer countries that can't afford it? Maybe poorer countries would side with Italy as they now see her as 'in their league'? Could these sort of things lead to trade embargoes, then lead to localised 'war'? Certainly a situation that might leave open a door for a radical government promising "rebuild the nation at any cost".

How's this, some of the big nations call for some form of enforcing Italy to pay its own way (which we assume it can't) but the majority (mostly smaller economies) side with Italy (thinking well if it happens to us we want support) and in fact oust the big players and enforce trade restriction and naval movement in the Mediterranean ?

In such a scenario, what about the Lega Nord's influence, the people that want to separate Northern from Southern Italy in any case. Would such a disaster, after a short period of strengthening the national influence, not further erode this? I imagine that a lot of money would have to flow from the rich North to the poor South in your scenario.

An interesting scenario. I don't know if you could do a scenario based on an Italian volcano per se, however it would tie up a lot of NATO assets (including carriers) providing disaster relief, so it might be the opportune time for someone to kick something off elsewhere.

****

In terms of "worst disasters", you might want to revise that to "in living memory". There's, alas, been two massive famines, the 1845-52 Great Potato Famine in Ireland and the 1933 Holodomor in Ukraine, in the last 200 years, both worsened by the official response (claimed to be deliberate in the latter). The former resulted in mass emigration from Ireland and the latter is still a sore point in Ukrainian-Russian relations.

 

You've also got the Black Death way back around 1389, which killed a third of the population of Europe. You could form some interesting scenarios around a new "Black Death".

Hi there,

 

I read yesterday an interesting article related to your topic. A guy predicted that Roma may be struck by massive earthquake on May the 11th 2012. Seemingly this man had predicted with accuracy other natural disasters.

http://dav2012.over-blog.com/article-un-me...1-71884939.html

 

Have a nice day, regards

 

François "Gunny" Guérin

I think you may have to tie in some other contributing or catalyst type event in order to use a volcanic eruption in your storyline.

 

Potentially 'useful' issues that come to mind:

 

* the volcanic eruptions in Iceland last year caused a great deal of havoc in the civilian air traffic system in Europe because of the 'ash cloud'

 

* maybe Italy is suffering from political turmoil and/or dissent with the EU due to an influx of refugees and/or illegal immigrants, maybe from an expanded civil war in Libya?

 

* maybe Italy defaults on loans from other EU members as a result or in combination with the refugee problem? leading to a denial of support from those EU lenders in the wake of the calamity?