Durant l'été 1976, la ville de Basse-Terre est évacuée car le volcan de la Soufrière est sur le point d'entrer en éruption. Werner Herzog parcourt la ville déserte et décrit la situation.
In 1865 during the American Civil War, a massive storm sweeps through a Confederate prison camp. Union soldiers Cyrus Harding (Michael Craig), Herbert Brown (Michael Callan) and Neb (Dan Jackson), are planning an escape via a tethered gas balloon. When a new prisoner, Union war correspondent Gideon Spillet (Gary Merrill), is brought into their cell, they knock out the guard and escape from the prison house. Once they arrive at the balloon, they drag one of the Confederate guards named Pencroft (Percy Herbert) aboard. After he explains that he knows how to pilot the balloon, they let him join the group.
The story describes how the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa on the island blew half of the large island into the air that produced a tsunami, and an air wave that was felt seven times around the globe. The eruption also emitted tons of dust that dimmed the sun all over the world for many months.
The film begins with a group of hooded people in caribou parkas riding through snow on snowmobiles. Arriving at a nearly buried building, inside they find a video recorded journal of a man who appears to be dying. The man in the video reports that the Yellowstone Caldera eruption has affected nearly everything in the United States, burying much of the country under several feet of volcanic ash.
On the fictional Pacific island of Talua in French Polynesia, some 500 miles from Tahiti, Father Doonan (Spencer Tracy), has been relieved of his duties by Father Perreau (Kerwin Mathews). Father Doonan has fallen out of favor with the island's residents because he stumbled on the island's carefully hidden secret: Hansen's Disease (leprosy) among the children of the islands. He built a hospital for the children by the island's volcano.
In the time of Jesus Christ, blacksmith Marcus (Preston Foster) is content with his life, beautiful wife Julia (Gloria Shea) and six-month-old son. However, when Julia and their child are run down by a chariot in the streets of Pompeii, Marcus spends the little money he has to pay for a doctor and medicine. Needing more, in desperation, he becomes a gladiator. He wins his fight, but in vain; his wife and child die.
À cause d'une rivalité amoureuse, Glauco, un bel Athénien aux multiples conquêtes, devient le pire ennemi d'Arbace, grand prêtre égyptien du temple d'Isis. Ce dernier a déjà éliminé un de ses proches qui menaçait de faire des révélations sur son compte et s'arrange pour faire accuser Glauco à sa place, qu'il fait jeter dans la fosse aux lions. Mais peu après, le Vésuve entre en éruption.
Une des fortes éruptions se produit dans le mont Paektu. Scientifiques et militaires du Corée du Nord et du Sud s’entraident pour prévenir ce catastrophe, car de nouvelles explosions risquent dominer la péninsule coréenne…
In Pompeii 79AD, Glaucus and Jone are in love with each other. Arbace, Egyptian High Priest is determined to conquer her. Glaucus buys the blind slave Nidia who is mishandled by her owner.
One evening, Petrie arrogantly begins telling a tale of the best creatures of the world: the Flyers. Cera disagrees and the tale isn't true. Petrie then spots a herd of dinosaurs visiting the Great Valley, but apparently they don't matter. The youngsters later went to bed after their parents called them in for the night. Later that night, Littlefoot sees a strangely blue colored meteor falling from the sky and colliding into Threehorn Peak, a volcano in the Smoking Mountain range. When Littlefoot describes it the next morning, most of the adult dinosaurs in the Great Valley disbelieve Littlefoot's story since he is a known liar. However, two newcomers, the mysterious and racially-insensitively named "Rainbow Faces", speak eloquently of possibilities of wonders beyond what they know. The Rainbow Faces suggest (i.e., lie) that the rock may be a "Stone of Cold Fire", a stone possessing magical properties. Pterano, the devious, sinister and outcast uncle of Littlefoot's friend Petrie, somehow overhears the conversation and conspires to use the rock to take control of the Great Valley Ganon-style. Pterano asks Petrie, who idolizes him for some reason, for the location of the rock and is told it has landed on Threehorn Peak. Littlefoot's friend Ducky overhears Pterano's plan because dinosaurs apparently aren't good at whispering, but Pterano and his cronies, Sierra and Rinkus, abduct her before she can warn the others. They take her along as they set out to find the Stone of Cold Fire before an Amber Alert is filed. The other dinosaurs discover Ducky's kidnapping. The adults tell the young ones that Pterano had been made an outcast due to his carelessness after self-appointing himself leader of a group of dinosaurs; while searching for the Great Valley, Pterano was overconfident and led his followers directly into a pack of small, albino Sharpteeth. Pterano, a Pteranodon like Petrie (that makes sense; they are uncle and nephew), was able to fly away, although the event left him heart-broken. He ended up expelled from the herd as punishment for abandoning his followers, yet he continues to hang around undeterred.
Dr. Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan), a volcanologist of the United States Geological Survey, and his partner Marianne (Walker Brandt), are studying volcanic activity in Colombia when the volcano erupts. Marianne is killed by a piece of falling debris, leaving Harry remorseful about her death, believing it could have been prevented by evacuating sooner.
Joe Banks (Tom Hanks) is a downtrodden everyman from Staten Island, working a clerical job in a dreary factory for an unpleasant, demanding boss, Frank Waturi (Dan Hedaya). Joyless, listless, and chronically sick, Banks regularly visits doctors who can find nothing wrong with him. Finally, Dr. Ellison (Robert Stack) diagnoses an incurable disease called a "brain cloud" which has no symptoms, but will kill Joe within five or six months. Ellison says that Joe's ailments were psychosomatic, caused by his horrific experiences in his previous job as a firefighter. Ellison advises him, "You have some life left...live it well." Joe tells his boss off, quits his job, and asks former coworker DeDe (Meg Ryan) out on a date, but when he tells her that he is dying, she becomes very upset and leaves.
In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley visits astrophysicist Satnam Tsurutani in India and learns that neutrinos from a massive solar flare are causing the temperature of the Earth's core to rapidly increase. Arriving at a party in Washington, D.C, Helmsley presents his information to White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser, who takes him to meet the President.
In Pompeii, in the year 79AD, Lysias, a wealthy young Greek, abducts the beautiful Hélène, who is a pupil of Arbax, the sinister High Priest of Isis. For revenge, Arbax causes Lysias to drink a magic potion to make him fall in love with his ally Julie, but Lysias becomes mad from the drink. Nidia, a young slave girl rescued by Lycias, has overheard the plot and accuses Arbax of trying to kill her master. Arbax kills the girl and has Lysias accused of the murder. Condemned to the lions in the arena, Lysias only escapes the punishment when the eruption of Vesuvius brings panic to the town, and he leads Hélène to safety.