FBI agents tell Steve Kroft about their 16-year search and eventual capture of Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, once No. 1 on the Most Wanted list. Also, Lesley Stahl has the untold story of a young, American banker's 1975 return to Vietnam to save his stranded Vietnamese colleagues and their families. Finally, volcanoes are found all over the world and many could spew lava and mass destruction -- we just don't know when; Scott Pelley reports.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Forty eight hours and c b s news present season? Three of my life of crime with Erin Moriarty, this season, joint erin for extended interviews with convicted murderers, go beyond speculation to the evidence in our toro. Gaudy really commit suicide at what happened agenda for do laws. The connecticut mom still missing, almost four years later: listen to buy life of crime from forty eight hours
on amazon, music or wherever you get your pot of ass. Sixty minutes coming up next true story: a seattle man went to bed with nearly three hundred grand and his bank account by morning. The money had vanished because of some identity thief. Q imagined would have some thief got to your life's savings. Look, no one can stop all identity theft, but here's what I did. I armed my bank and retirement accounts with lifelong ultimate plus yup life. Locks best just got better. Lifelong ultimate plus is the most comprehensive identity theft protection available, helping protect your idea
your bank and retirement accounts. Credit cards, even the equity in your home. How many other idea, theft protection services do that zero? So why risk it do it? I did get lifelong ultimate plus and sleep easier, knowing if a thief goes after your identity or life's savings, life locks on it, visit life locked out, come now and inter promo code, gordon or call in mention Gordon, to save ten percent on your lifelong ultimate plus membership. Eight hundred nine one, six, seventy one! Seventy that's! Eight hundred nine one, six, seventy one! Seventy eight hundred nine one, six, seven one! Seven zero network does not cover all transactions.
welcome to play a new podcast network featuring radio and tv personalities, talking business, sports tech, entertainment and more play it at play, dot it who are poor but we're corner. On the third floor, the apartment belonged to Boston, mobster,
time fugitive, whitey bulger, then the most wanted man in america, vulture eluded the fbi. For fourteen years. By hiding,
in plain sight, in santa Monica california, tonight you'll hear from the agents who finally caught him with some help from an alley cat in his girlfriends breast implants. You just rushed and amy
out at the arc de move. I asked them to identify himself in an overwhelmingly asked me to athens,
and if I myself and I ask
So are you whitey bulger? He said its story. That's never been
two
I they were a hundred and five and all who John Riordan,
in his own life rescued in the last days of the vietnam war
even now for decades later, when they see him, you know they now he's the reason and their alive, and they call him papa. How many children do you actually have now
grandchildren? I just keep using the number hundred and five, but the grandchildren, don't ask me, I can't ask
wow. That is founded. Whoa. Look at that.
I got a tyrannical one side. Looking right into greater. There are fifteen hundred active volcanoes, and tonight we want to tell you about three
one that cause the most recent mass disruption. Another that's the biggest threat to a major city and a third,
in the united states that could wreak havoc
around the world. I am steve graft
leslie star, I'm morley safer, I'm Bob Simon, I'm bill whittaker, I'm scant billy. Those stories tonight on sixty minutes
Charlie and carol gas go were an elderly couple who moved to santa Monica California sometime in early nike, ninety seven to begin a new phase of their life for the next forty,
years. They did almost nothing. That was memorable and, as we first reported last season, they would be of absolutely no interest if it weren't for the fact that Charlie Gaskell turned out to be james, whitey bulger, the notorious boston gangster and long time fugitive, who is now serving to lifetime senses. Carol gas go was actually catherine gray. Why these long time, girlfriend and caregiver the story of how they manage to elude in international manner. For so long, while hiding in plain sight is interesting, and tonight you'll hear it from the gas goes neighbours and from the federal agents who finally unravelled,
with the help of a booby job and an alley cat, if you're forced into retirement with a comfortable, nesta again a desire to be left completely alone, there is no better placed than santa Monica california. This low key seaside suburb of delay is shared by transients and tourists, hippies and heinous celebrities and lots of senior citizens attracted to the climate and an abundance of inexpensive rent control departments. Just a few blocks from the ocean places like the princess Eugenio on third street, which is where charlie and carol gas go.
childless couple from Chicago live for fourteen years, without attracting much attention from long time, neighbours or landlords. Josh bond is the building manager
They were like the nice retired old couple that living environment next to me, contenance excellent tenets, never complained, always paid ran on time in cash in cash june is good, wouldn't lose
down the whole, they are nothing, then they never went out they'd. Never how true delivered she never addressed nicely. You thought they were poor. Yes, without it
Well, the one thing everyone remembers about the gas goes is that they loved animals and always made a fuss over the ones in the neighborhood, Barbara glock remembers that carol, gasco always fed a stray cat. After it's owner had died. She would you know pet it and be sweet to it, and then she would put a plate of food like out here and she liked the cat. Obviously she'd love the cat and we
like the cab, but she was taking care of the cap. Then what about charlie gaskell? You know he always had a head on and dark glasses. I have to say it was mysterious to me
Why a lovely woman like that was hanging out with that? I said old, grumpy man. I never could figure that will now
Until I heard they had eight hundred thousand something dollars in the wall yeah, then I went. Oh okay, you know money, wasn't the only thing found in the gas
department on june twenty second, two thousand and eleven when the f b I stopped by and ended what it called the most extensive manhunt in the bureau's history, weapons all over the apartment
thence by his nightstand weapons out of the window, sill shot guns, many,
others rifles loaded, loaded, ready to go with it
it out as a routine day for a special agents, god guerrilla, who was in charge of hunting fugitives nl. I would turn into one of the most interesting days of his career. After get
you call the stake out a building in santa Monica. He notified his backup team with the lapd for guys work on that day.
And this without turbine whitey, bulger analyses.
They are about an hour and invariably the textual return, whose whitey bulging really
a few of them that I'd remind them gently remind them who are the bulge was that he was number one on the
erasmus, wonderful number, one everyone here, biggie big east coast.
bigger, but certain west coast, not so much imaginary cartels,
the cops in our way. We're focused on gang bankers and cartel members, not some retired irish mobster, who hadn't been spotted in sixteen years within view
lobsters, have ever been, as infamous in the city is whitey. Bulger was in Boston and his reputation was for more than just being grumpy. Besides extortion and flooding the city with cocaine, bolger routinely performed or ordered executions. Some at close range some with a hail of bullets in at least one by strangulation, after which it said he took a nap special agent rich tea and who ran the f b I's whitey bulger, fugitive task force. It heard it all
soldier, was charged with nineteen council of murder. He was charged with other crimes. He was scorched this society itself.
and his own community. He was
so a scourge to the fbi and a great source of embarrassment to tee and special agent feel towards me and others on the fbi task force
years earlier. Whitey bulger had infiltrated the boston office of the f b I and bought off agents who protected him in ply them with information, including the tip that allowed bolger to flee just days before he was to be indicted. We really had to catch the sky
establish credibility after all the other issues, and it was just a matter of bringing this guy back to boston, to make
This guy didn't die our or in our or get away with this state tours.
Whose now retired and agent tommy mcdonald joined the task force in two thousand and nine. The joke was bulger was on the fbi's least wanted list
embed a credible lead in more than a decade and their efforts in bolger's, old, neighborhood of south Boston were met with mistrust and ridicule. Some people told us right out from you guys are looking for that. Guy people just made the assumption we had them stashed somewhere. I mean people really thought that kind of thing. Despite that mindset that we're not going to help you and the fbi still got it done, took sixteen years took sixteen years
it was not a typical fugitive. The f b I says soldier had planned is get away years in advance with money set aside in a fake identity for atomic Baxter,
during its first two years on the lamb vulgar was in touch with friends and family
huddling between new york, Chicago and the resort town
as grand I'll Louisiana, where he rented a home until his identity was compromised, after that, it seemed as if bolder had disappeared from the face of the earth, except for the alleged sightings all over the world. How many of these steps to think
been true boy. There were, there are thousands and thousands of tips, and I think I don't think any of a more true one of the obstacles was there were really no good photographs
bolder or his long time live in girlfriend Catherine gregg, a former dental hygienist. The FBI often noted that the couple shared a love of animals, especially dogs and cats, and ask that marion's to be on the look out. There were reports. The gregg once had breast implants and other plastic surgery in Boston, so the task force reached out to physicians. Eventually they got a call from a doctor, Matthias
as Donald who had located or files in storage. That was try to leave you off so early to catch. One of my kids, ballgames and I said well, listen I'm going to swing by in the morning and pick those up and they said to me: do you want the photos to, and I said you have photos and they say yeah. We have photos, they said we'll be there. In fifteen minutes, the breast implant lead produced a treasure trove of high resolution, Catherine gregg photographs. That would help crack the case. The fbi decided
the switch strategies going after the girlfriend in order to catch the gangster. An announcement by the fbi had the f b. I created this public service announcement sixty year old grieg as the girlfriend of eighty one year old bulging. It ran in fourteen markets on day tom talk shows
aimed at women, win the tipp line at one eight hundred call FBI and it didn't take law the very next morning. The soldier taskforce got three messages:
from someone that used to live in santa Monica and was one hundred percent certain that charlie and carol gas go apartment. Three o three at the princess eugenia apartments were the people they were looking for. The descriptions
age difference, matched and deputy. U s! Marshall, Neil Sullivan, who handled the lead said there was another piece of tantalizing information: the text a specifically described that they were caring for this cat and their their love for this cats. As this one one piece of the puzzle- lung and the tap that just added up saying- if this isn't damn it's, it's something we better check out immediately because it sure sounds like a search of the fbi's computer database for the gas goes raised, another red flag, not for what it found, but for what it didn't, basically like there were gauss driver's license exactly know driver's license. No california idee by day
exist. That's the apartment that corner on the third floor on the right hand, side yup. My early afternoon, f b, I agent scott Gary only had set up a number of surveillance posts and had already met with apartment manager, Josh bond, to talk about his tenants because the door
threw down a folder and open it up and said: are these people that live in parma three o three?
You say anything when you saw the pictures
this reaction- was wholly you're living extorted, a gangster
still didn't, really know who he was, but it didn't take him
the figure it out, while the fbi was mulling, its options bond.
gone the boulders Wikipedia page
scrolling down it's like wow, this guy's serious?
so murders and extortion, and then I guess
bought on the nurses. This things like from one of his own people, saying well
I saw him. I saw him he he said you know when he goes out, he's he's going to have guns and he's going to be ready to take people with him. I was like who maybe I shouldn't be involved in this, and we were sitting here laughing about, but is a pretty serious guy yeah I've killed a lot of people that had them killed. I didn't know that at the time been told the f b I he wasn't going to knock on the gas goes door, because there was a note posted expressly asking people not to bother the carol.
Neighbours that charley was showing signs of dementia. So we were, we were back them, so gary Allah devised, a ruse involving the gas, goes storage locker in the garage had the name gas.
though, across her apartments, real three, he had the manager called to tell them that their locker had been broken into
and then he needed someone to come down to see. If anything was missing. Karel gas go said her husband would be right down. We just russian Amy guns out domo gave the word they have been.
get your hands up. Hands went up right away, and then, at that moment we don't
down his knees, and he gave us a year ago,
we're getting down on my fn knees. They want to get his pants. We don't wanna, get his pants dirty wearing white and seeing the oil on the ground. I guess he didn't want to get down in oil.
Even at eighty one. This was a man used to being in control. I asked
to identify himself and that didn't go over well. He asked me to
and identify myself, which I did and I asked a measure. Are you
Are you whitey bulger? He said yes, just about that moment. Someone catches my attention from a few feet away by the elevator shaft. It was janice goodwin from the third floor is coming to do laundry and I say, excuse me, I think I can help you. This man has dementia, so at his acting oddly, you know that could be
I immediately flashed through my mind, is: oh, my god. I just arrested and eighty one year old man with alzheimer's who thinks he's whitey bowser, what
and tell me next he's Elvis so I said: do me a favor? I said this woman over here says you have a touch of alzheimer's. He said dauntless, listen to her she's F, ing nuts. He says James bulger a few minutes later. He confirmed it signing a consent form allowing the fbi to search his apartment. As a signing says as the first time I signed that name in a long time where there is a feeling of resignation
I don't, I don't think he had it. I did ask him, I said: hey white here. Is that aren't you relieved that you don't have to look over your shoulder anymore and it's come to an end and he said: are you nuts, but in
ways, whitey bulger and Catherine gregg had already been prisoners in apartment. Three o three, which appeared to be a mixture of the murderous and the mundane along.
the weapons and all the money they had stockpile the lifetime supply of cleansers creams and detergents. The fbi took special interest in the collection of sixty four rounds. Bottles with white sock stretched over the top. I said why do you? What are easily some kind of me
have cocktail you're, making it known. Should I buy a tube socks and the ninety nine cent store and the two tied of my calves swear stretch mountain. I said: why are you shopping?
ninety nine cent store. You have a half a million dollars under your bed because I had to make the money last. It's been said that one of the reasons it took so long to catch whitey bulger is that people were looking for a gangster in bolger, whether he liked it or not had ceased to be one. He said it was hard to keep up that mindset of a criminal and that's part of the reason he came down
that garage. He said if he was on his game in all fifteen twenty thirty years ago. We pray what his sense something there by it.
It was hard to stay on that edge that criminal edge
for being on. The lamb is a regular citizen. For fifteen years the master manipulator gave quitted to Catherine gregg for keeping him crime free, hoping it would mitigate her since she is now serving eight years for harbouring a fugitive on the long plane. Ride back to boston, vulgar told his captors that he became obsessed with
getting caught in would do anything to avoid, even if a man obeying the law, whitey boulders biggest fear, they said, was being discovered dead in his apartment and he had a plan to have
If he became ill and no he was on his death bed, he go down arizona, crawl down the bottle one of these mines and die in decompose in hope hope that we will never find it may still be looking looking for him forever. Sixty minutes coming up after these short break,
true story. A seattle man went to bed with nearly three hundred grand and his bank account by morning. The money had vanished because of some identity thief you imagine, would have some thief got to your life's savings. Look, no one can stop all identity theft, but here's what I did. I armed my bank and retirement accounts with lifelong ultimate plus Yup life locks best. Just got better lifelong ultimate plus is the most comprehensive identity theft protection available, helping protect your identity, your bank and retirement accounts credit cards, even the equity in your home,
How many other idea theft protection services do that zero? So why risk it do it? I did get lifelong ultimate plus and sleep easier, knowing if a thief goes after your identity or life's savings life locks on it, visit life locked out, come now and inter promo code, gordon or call and mention gordon, to save ten percent on your lifelong ultimate plus membership. Eight hundred nine one, six, seventy one! Seventy that's eight hundred nine one, six, seventy one! Seventy eight hundred nine one, six, seven one! Seven zero network does not cover all transactions.
Welcome to play a new pie, gas network, featuring radio and tv personalities, talking business, sports, tack, entertainment and more players at play died in you,
heard of the brave and ingenious rescue of Jews from the nazis by oscar schindler and the courageous and unlikely.
Rescue of the american hostages from a ran depicted in the movie argo, but until we first reported it back in october of two thousand thirteen very few people had heard about the daring and day
this rescue of the vietnamese from Saigon, by John Riordan it has
nearly forty years ago at the very end of
vietnam war. When every one was trying to escape the communist incursion, no one was paying any attention
unassuming american banker, who had already been evacuated going back in to save his stranded, vietnamese colleagues and their families, you god advisory, buddy, everybody, wars of the bank spot
says, and children right there were a hundred and five and all who John Riordan
risking his own life rescued in the last days of the war.
You even now. For decades later, when they see him, you know,
they know, he's the reason they were alive today. Their leading prosperous law
his american citizens with children who are doctors and lawyers and with grandchildren avail. You know my name,
reared and even less is more than I know, John,
It was as far from rambo and mission impossible as you could get back in nineteen. Seventy five. He was a young banker handsome and unattached working as the assistant manager of city bank in Saigon. They gave you a villa that gave me a villa and you lived well, I live well, yes, he hosted barbecues at the villa for the banks. Thirty four vietnamese employees tellers sex
terry's accountants. They were like a family tying their future to american banking. With that april, communist tanks were barreling toward saigon. Hundreds of thousands were leaving or trying to
three weeks before Saigon fell,
got an order from citibank. New york burn everything important and get out
They said John. We ve chartered a seven forty, seven panam that's coming in and we want you to take
all of your staff and leave the bank and get out of this plain by this point. It dawns on you what would happen to those people if you didn't get,
Some of them would be killed. It's scary, it was very scary. Cook firm, worked in person now she vu
The head teller, they were hearing rumours of reprisals by the vietcong against anyone working for the americans. Would you have
seen as traders despise. The closing view too,
american, the more they think you're spy. But there.
government set up checkpoints to keep
Well, from leaving the country without exit papers, the staff had no way to escape john didn't want to leave without them, but the bank ordered him out, so he boarded that pan am flight to hong kong alone and the employees were left to fend for themselves.
Did you feel abandoned? Yes did John say anything to you and he left. I was crying so much. I was worried about my kiss, my ass them in,
he said no worry I'll, be there for you, John and his body,
does it citibank spent day and night in Hong kong cooking up rescue plans they try to send in helicopters, even an oil tanker
and they asked the? U s government to help all in vain. I felt we had all those people
In there and they were counting on us and many more,
times in the conversations we have with them. They said to us: don't let us down please to everything
can, but after two weeks of trying citibank said enough manager, told the hong kong team
you try. Some daring rescue mission, you're fired that night. Johns immediate boss, MIKE Mc tie a former marine asked John to dinner, and just as my steak arrived- and I was thinking of my
in the fork and he's making small talk all and then suddenly he says you know. John one of us asked to go back and I put down my knife and fork and push that steak
and I could feel tears coming out of my eyes and he said: would you go back go back even though it meant losing his job.
possibly losing his life, and yet eleven days before Saigon would fall
The mild mannered banker defied his bag and better judgment caught. The very last comment:
the flight into saigon and walked into the branch, and everybody comes running around me and said: what do we do? What do we do? How are we going to get outta here and everything, but you're there under the authority of
oh you're, not working for low mcenroe one hour, my own, on its own authority, John move them with their families, all one hundred five of them
to his villa and another one near by so they all be ready to go as a group when and if he came up with a plan, he told
them to tell no one where they were. Four days went by, nothing was working
until a cia agent told him the only way.
Now is on: u s military cargo planes that are a vacuum
americans and their dependants. He says evacuation has begun, take your family and go out to the airport, then process them through, and I said well, I dont have a family and he said just create,
a wife and children, the matter who they are and go out there and sign the document in this is the first time you ve heard this. I yes, yes, try and pass off his vietnamese colleagues, their spouses and children as his family. There were one hundred five of them. Do you say to him?
are you kidding me, don't say cockamamie. He doesn't know, because there have been so much cocker mania before that. This is the time to jump on anything that looked like it was going to float. You are at the end of europe. Yes, absolutely it was worth a try, but not for all of them at once.
He took the bank van and went out to the airfield alone to see if it would work. I walked into that process.
In your area, and I somebody gave me a piece of paper. It said list your dependence on here and I was fumbling for what piece of paper I was gonna have to write this all down. They said just that attach that to this
He's a paper keep going, so it was a right names. You had a wife and fourteen name right that was kind of ambitious daughter, dart and daughter eyes on here. This is the paper wife daughter, daughter, son, fourteen kids, some older than he was
he was certifying on a? U S, government document that these were his children, is your heart pounding
Yes, I had only was nervous. Yes, he was stunned when the officer
no questions asked stamped it and handed John evacuation tax. He rushed to the village to pick the fifteen up.
is that such a crazy idea was actually working
do you remember when you came back? What happened? We shall be happy if an elation does the he's a lifesaver hear an answer, but you have to keep it secret right, yeah, you never told your parents, so you never said goodbye now over the next four days, as fear gripped the city John repeated, this rule is going back and forth to the airport ten times filling.
Papers, with groups of six or eight to any of these officers. Every question you and all of us on this one man. He said the seen you here before before the no sir, absolutely bang
I know you want to get going to end and then
The time this man said. Will you ve got one heck of a big,
Family hero you've been busy when you bet. I said. Oh yes, I've been here a long time and just say that again he just went back and back and back hard to believe. It would be that simple to do. We recently met with seven of his
daughters. They didn't think it was all that simple since John was separating them from their husbands or the staffed woman or golfers, and their husband will meet in a separate group. At that moment you know I was like thinking. Will I ever meet and see my husband? Getting the husbands out was the most dangerous? Yes, because you know they were either in an army or walking for the goldman, and if the mp, they saw anybody like that or they caught. Anybody like that was shoot right away. John was able
get the husbands, fake adoption papers as his sons and managed to get some of them on what he thought was safe? A? U S, embassy evacuation bus like this one to the airport, but the bus was stopped by police. Looking for deserters, the driver of the boss stopped at the checkpoint, opened the door and a vietnamese police officer stepped up
the bus and he looked up and down the aisle, and I thought this is it we're all going to be taken off this person shock, but
split. Second, a woman sitting in the front seat. We had them use woman, leaped up toward the policemen and poked her hands into his stomach. I thought she knife do and then I saw a bag of something move from her hands to his hands that either it's a bribe bag of money, bag of money. Here the bribe worked, waved them through the last group of men at the villa were afraid to risk another bus, but John was out of ideas
Finally, one of the men thought up an ingenious plan. They pretended they were delivering bundles of money to the airport in the bank van. They even call the police or an escort like this, and they had rifles in everything and they just let us right through the gates of the airport. Just went right run the plane with these guys they were safe, us all
one of them was cheese husband. Every time I asked you about John, you cry
old guy. You know
behind and dick took us out this so much was saved my case, among others
they flew on one of the last planes out of sight, god, after that, the only route of escape or the helicopters
the thing: u s! Embassy. Within a few days, north vietnamese tanks rolled into the presidential palace, the war, was over what
followed were years of starvation and brutal repression. Many who try to escape by both ground at sea, but thanks to John, the city bank employees were flown out to either guam
or the philippines and then all reunited at camp pendleton in California. Do you think all this time you ve been fired yeah. I do still think that I'm not worried,
but though, I'm still alive there all alive fourteen things. Well, he wasn't fired. He was given a big bonus and hailed as a hero
at the reunion for John and long island with a group of his children,
we found out. They call him papa
Yes, I do, though, citibank spent
billion dollars to resettle all the employees, giving them and many of the spouses
never forget. You have the time and saigon he thought of his colleagues at the bank as his vietnamese family forty years later, still his family.
But now as american. As
Do you think the people who came here have had good lives? Yes, I do.
How many children do you actually have now and grandchildren? I just keep using the number one hundred and five, but the grandchildren. Don't ask me: I think that, as sixty minutes coming up after this short break,
true story. A seattle man went to bed with nearly three hundred grand in his bank account by morning. The money had vanished because of some identity thief, you imagine what of some thief got to your life's savings? Look, no one can stop all identity theft, but here's what I did. I armed my bank and retirement accounts with lifelong ultimate plus yup life. Locks best just got better. Lifelong ultimate plus is the most comprehensive identity theft protection available, helping protect your identity, your bank and retirement accounts credit cards, even the equity in your home
how many other idee theft protection services do that zero. So why risk it do it? I did get lifelong ultimate plus and sleep easier, knowing if a thief goes after your identity or life's savings life locks on it, visit life locked out, come now and inter promo code, gordon or call in mention Gordon, to save ten percent on your lifelong ultimate plus membership. Eight hundred nine one, six, seventy one! Seventy that's eight hundred nine one, six, seventy one! Seventy eight hundred nine one, six, seven one! Seven zero network does not cover all transactions
welcome to play a new pie, gas network, featuring radio and tv personalities, talking business, sports, tack, entertainment and more players at play, dad it
if you think we're living in an unstable world. Just listen to this. Only one per cent of our earth is solid. Rock
most of the other. Ninety nine percent is an oozing mass churning beneath our feet, like road tar at temperatures between two thousand and ten thousand degrees. The earth's crust is only twenty miles thick and when that cracks, one of the greatest forces in nature erupts, there are fifteen hundred active volcanoes, and last year we told you about three one that cause the most recent mass disruption. Another that's the biggest
to a major city and a third in the united states that could wreak havoc all around the world,
the first, the disruptive volcano
The name is long and as hard as the trouble it caused. I e flat ill yoke
means island mountain glacier in the inscrutable language of iceland.
blue. When twenty ten, we started shooting the story, and we came to the right place over the last five hundred years. Iceland's thirty volcanoes have released one third of all of the law.
On earth we put together an expedition to be the first to reach the summit after the eruption. The volcanic landscape covered an ice, isn't hospitable to life or convoys. For that matter, the man in front of the truck is pointing out cracks in the glacier. That would swallow this whole. We cover
miles forbidding terrain at walking speak now. Mr dies find when the trucks could go. No further, we height with our guide. One of the world's leading authority on volcanoes are older cigarettes, while that is astounding,
Oh look at that gun. Incredible,
side, looking right into a crater scientists rate volcanic ash
and on a scale of zero to eight. This is a for which they call category
tell me what you're saying it's an explosive erosion and explosions are producing big clouds of ash, not moving up up straight up into the atmosphere of the velocity of a few hundred feet per second and throwing out huge rocks
How big are these pieces? We say flying some of these are the size of cars and how,
they're going up must be a thousand feet or at least a thousand feet, but there's still a red hot baby, two thousand degrees fahrenheit. What's causing these stupendous exe
we are reared debate, blooms, hearing, huge gas bubbles in my mother
popping open. They may be one hundred feet in diameter and when they get closer to the surface, they are the pressure inside these gas bubbles is so great that they blow off. The magma audits are ahead of them and then they release the gas and that's a big sonic boom. Look at the
just erupting up into the sky. Unbelievable. This is a great place to explain exactly where volcanoes happened on the earth. The crust of the earth and forces fractured like a broken mirror and its fractured into about fifteen major plates called tectonic plates volcanoes happen all around the edges where the earth's crust is fractured, and here in iceland, a major line runs right through the middle of
the island and the two plates are breaking apart and that's exactly what you see happening behind me not happening behind is what ruined our view was steam. It was exploding every
where the lava hit the ice. Ancient glacier was melting in a flash one, carving kin
into the mouth the thermal shock. Also
wafted of fine black hovered form
four miles, they call it, but it's really feels like sand in iceland.
and tears come out in the cities to help farmers dig out. These were bankers who brought their shovels from the capital break of it. It was this ash that made a flatly up the most disruptive.
corruption in years, the ash billowed up nearly thirty three thousand feet and drifted.
A thousand miles over europe. One hundred thousand flights were cancelled, ten million
People were stranded for we still both acknowledges geraldo cigarettes and told us that kind of trouble is nothing compared to irruptions elsewhere in the recent past and the best example of that the card.
in fifteen when there was an eruption and tom bore a volcano in indonesia, bigger explosive irruption sent out the ash cloud up to about thirty miles and they dispersed vary widely and also a lot of sulphur came out of this volcano and that led to
global cooling and produce what is known as the year without a summer in new england in north America the year without a summary air without a summer and eighteen. Sixteen, because of this one, volcanic ash.
on the other side of the earth and that type of event will occur again and that the eruption also lead to a big migration south of central europe into russia and great disturbances, while worldwide, which volcano on earth would you say, is most dangerous to people, because the volcano, where there's a very large population, adjacent to it and on it and that's the soviets
in ITALY, vesuvius, is our second stop, and you might think that if anyone knew better than to live by a volcano, it would be the people around the most infamous mountain of all
but today and so
in italy, a metropolis spreads within striking distance of vesuvius service, many
in the area that they live in to kill them. We would for a look up close with american vulcanologist. Might sheraton flew over the cinder cone on the helicopters of the guardia di Finanza, a police force that helps?
watch over the mountain, vesuvius, sheraton's life's work, and he has warned the government that it can count on evacuating the number of people in harm's way and what is that
It depends on the type of explosion. If there's one like the last big eruption that occurred in sixty thirty one, there would be about six hundred thousand people, but if it is an eruption like the two thousand year ago, eruption that destroyed pompeii, the number could be up to three and a half million pompeii, as it was august
in the fourth seventy nine, a d the moment it was preserved under more than ten feet of ash and rock the boulevards the homes. The mosaics are the volcano's contribution to history round. Here they do a lively business in the dead citizens of pompeii are frozen in timeless agony. About
Ten thousand were killed sculpted where they fell. Scientists have a good idea of what these people saw. After studying the evidence of what remains witnesses described the mountain
billing. Four days before it launched a column of ashen rock twelve miles high, which fell back as hell on earth. The wind came shooting down the sides of the mountain. At more than two hundred miles an hour, the air temperature was about nine hundred degrees and the ash that fell throughout the region. Left this part of italy uninhabitable for three hundred years.
Today, from this control, room, volcanologists, Giuseppe master, lorenzo monitors the instruments that will provide ITALY's early warning. He showed us those
three and a half million people that crowd all around the cinder cone of the mountain one day. It may be up to him to sound the alarm. How much time will you have probably just a few days? We can just hope that we will ever weeks or months, but we cannot make a contract with evolve. Can so your friends say, look at hasn't, erupted and hundreds of years, and you must say that's the problem. That's a I'm trying to convince the people that this quite mounting can be a killer. At the base of the quiet mountain, the peaceful piazza tornado greco was wiped out.
On average about once every one hundred years give or take the bill tower, survive the eruption of seventeen. Ninety four and today old men rest their feet on rock solid evidence of. What's coming next Michael Sheridan told us that vesuvius
has a very long life ahead of it. This pattern is complex. It has different personalities.
and the last personality was rather benign, but he's got some
personalities down there. No, we don't want to x,
in our lifetime, there are bigger personalities among volcanoes, which scientists call super volcanoes
well, the last remember or eruption in iceland was a four on a scale of eight in quite a while will and eight would change life on earth for elders.
Cigarettes and told us there is a name for one of the places where that is likely to happen. It's called
Yellowstone national park, our third volcano old, faithful, is here for a reason in the northwest corner of wyoming. The caldeira is about fifty miles wide, so big that you can't see it from the ground below is what science calls a hot spot, where a vast plume of magma has pushed
into the crust the floor of the volcano is is, is breathing like an animal, it's arising them and moving up and down because magma inside the volcano. What's the history of eruption of the hot spot in yellowstone, the last eruption was about four hundred thousand years ago, the last big one that was a devastating explosive irruption, the yellowstone size eruption will occur. Of course, we have no idea when
Is being monitored very very closely, so there is no chance of it, the occurring without any warning, but it's it's a devastating event,
stating to aviation communications and agriculture. Volcanoes can change the course of history. Never before have so many people lived within striking distance,
two hundred million worldwide science is good at warning of irruptions that are weeks away. But beyond that, it's impossible to predict which one is next
or how big it will be. I I'm Scott melick we'll be back next week with another addition of sixty minutes,
This is the takeout with major garrett, Jim Jordan. The chairman of the house, judiciary committee, is our special guests with Kevin Mccarthy be speaker, but for Jim Jordan and Kevin Mccarthy has done a good job. Was it personal? It's often said. Congress is not altogether that different from high school personal grudges and grievances and not being a part of the cool kids whatever. What was it? What was the esas to eat as them come on? You have a sense of what it was about. My guess is: there's, maybe some of that for more from this week's conversation, follow that take out with major garrett on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts
Transcript generated on 2023-01-16.