POMPEII was a city in Italy that was destroyed after a volcano erupted nearby in 79AD.
The city was destined for destruction as soon as the volcano erupted, burying the Roman town and all those who could not escape.
Where was Pompeii?
Pompeii was once a very prosperous ancient Roman town on the Gulf of Naples, in Italy's Campania region.
The city was home 11,000 people and boasted a complex water system, amphitheatre, gymnasium and even a port.
It was buried in millions of tonnes of volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius catastrophically erupted in 79AD.
Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Italy's most popular tourist attractions with around 2.5million visitors a year.
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How was Pompeii destroyed?
On August 4, in the year 79AD, Vesuvius erupted in one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in history.
It shot stone, ash and volcanic gases as high as 21 miles into the sky at tens of thousands of cubic metres every second.
The thermal energy released was said to be a hundred thousand times that of the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima-Nagasaki.
The city was preserved in volcanic debris for centuries until it was rediscovered in the late 16th century in an excavation led by Spanish military engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre.
Over the next 250 years it was a hotbed of scientific activity, with researchers uncovering several intact buildings and even wall paintings.
To this day, scientists are finding cultural, architectural and human remains on the banks of Mount Vesuvius.
Excavations at thermal baths in Pompeii's ruins in February revealed the skeleton of a crouching child who perished in the 79AD eruption.
How many people died when Mount Vesuvius erupted?
The volcanic debris as a result of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius turned people to ash where they stood.
Around 2,000 people are believed to have been killed in Pompeii, which had a population of 11,000 at the time.
Some people came back to the ash-covered city to looked for loved ones with very little luck.
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