There are a lot more deadly things out there in the world that are far more likely to kill you in a given space of time than a volcanic eruption. According to a large and rather painstaking review of volcanic eruptions from 1600 to 2010, there were a total of 278,880 human fatalities, at a minimum. Volcanic eruptions tend to kill a handful of people every year, and then a few thousand every time a particularly explosive one occurs, but let’s not concern ourselves with this troublesome detail for now. Back in 2015 alone, 13,286 people were killed by firearms – way worse than any volcano-related death rate. Heart disease, by the way, is even worse: about 610,000 people die of cardiovascular complications every single year there, which makes this particular health problem nearly 900 times more dangerous than volcanic eruptions.

Source: Forbes February 17, 2017 17:25 UTC