Living Up Close and Personal With an Active Volcano | National Geographic

It matters that there's a volcano. It matters. It matters a lot because that's, um, 75% of the identity of this place. The volcano is present; the volcano is breathing. The, uh, the volcano really is a living creature.

It's a bit of a romantic representation, maybe, although then geology does have a romantic component to it. The major catastrophe here, as strong, it's a major landl, which can trigger a tsunami. There are no volcanologists who just hit on their desk and process data. You have first to collect the data, and to collect the data, you have to climb on top of a volcano. There is no other solution.

It's something amazing; you just climb to the summit. It's a strong climb, it's a strong hike, and when you reach the summit, you have a very beautiful landscape. You really can't feel the explosions. After almost 13 years of very, uh, careful, um, physical monitoring of the activity, I would say that this is rather safe because the volcano is a living creature.

Somehow, it has also to be very much respected. Sometimes we forget that we're living on top of this, you know, volcano, and a lot of people reckon that this is a big, big bomb. But, you know, there's trouble wherever you go, and you can die in any place. So if someday one day is going to explode, I'm going to die. Who cares? This is life. This is the way it goes. [Music]