Are mud volcanoes hazardous?
Of course, they are, but not as much as the magmatic ones. Very rare their eruptions result in human causalities. Fortunately, most of mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan are located far from populated areas. Neverthless, eruption may be hazardous due to a high pressure inside a cone. For this reason, during eruption there occurs inflammation of gas; sometimes a column of flame is 300 – 500m high, there appear numerous fractures around the crater field. There were cases when eruptions of a volcano caused damages and losses due to its suddenness and strength. In 1902 at night there occurred eruption of Bozdag – Bobu volcano. 6 cowboys and 2000 sheep perished because they put up for the night near the crater of the volcano. In 1932 newspapers informed about human casualities during the eruption of Svinoy volcano (now Sangi – Mugan) in the Caspian Sea. For this reason, construction of dlvelling houses and buildings in the vicinity of mud volcanoes is hazardous.
