Revealing mistake: When Rachel dies during the major earthquake, the steam goes back into the hole perfectly. The steam's movement, which is unnatural, shows that they blew steam out of the crack and then ran the shot backwards. (00:27:50)
Continuity mistake: When Don Cheadle walks into the OEM in the morning just after the blackout, there is a guy with a headset holding his hand on it in one shot, but just holding the end of it with his fingertips in the next shot. (00:28:30)
Continuity mistake: Just after Amy gets out of the drain, her fire suit is off her one shoulder and halfway between her shoulder and elbow. The camera cuts and it is back on her shoulder up to her neck instantly. (00:32:10)
Continuity mistake: Roark's car has the windscreen smashed and cracked by the volcanic ash. In some shots, mainly a distant shot of it being driven, there are no cracks in the windscreen. (00:32:35)
Continuity mistake: When the nurse is in her 4x4 vehicle, she looks in her mirror and sees two fire trucks. In the far away shot the first fire engine overtakes her, then when it cuts back to her it's overtaking her again. It's not just repeated for the sake of effect, the radio announcer giving comments of the events is continuous. (00:34:30)
Revealing mistake: When the fire truck gets hit by a lava ball and flips over, you can see two smoke plumes coming out the bottom of the truck. These are the remains of the two cannons used to flip the truck over. (00:34:55)
Continuity mistake: When Amy Barnes is leaning against the 4x4/humvee, she realises it is snowing so she puts her hand up. In the previous shot she touches her face with gloves on, and in the following shot the gloves are no longer on her hands. (00:35:50)
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Jaye Calder is attending to the injured fireman on the road, Roark comes up and in one particular shot is near the fireman's side. In the following shot he is at the fireman's head, not at his side. (00:36:55)
Other mistake: Just before the lava begins to flow, the glass in a building shatters and falls on Roark and the doctor but neither suffer so much as a cut. (00:38:15)
Continuity mistake: When the lava first comes out of the Tar Pits near the beginning, two cars drive past it. In the next shot a bit further away, one of the cars on the left is now a 4x4, which was not in the previous shot. (00:38:40)
Revealing mistake: When the fireman goes to enter the fire truck that is on its side to rescue his friend, for whatever reason, the filmmakers sped up the film during his entry into the truck, it looks really out of place. (00:40:30)
Continuity mistake: When Roark is trying to get a radio, and Emmitt is watching on the big screen in the OEM building, there is a black man behind him who is talking to the guy with the headset on. In one shot the black guy is almost back to back with Emmitt and looks over his shoulder to look at the screen, yet when it cuts, the black guy is talking to the other guy but is not back to back with Emmitt. (00:43:25)
Continuity mistake: When Roark has been seen looking for a radio, there is a bloke behind Emmit who has a headset on. The camera does an instant cut to the front and the headset has gone. (00:43:40)
Continuity mistake: There is a shot of a 'hippy' style car with lots of slogans and messages written all over it, melting, but in a shot much later on, the same car is still in amongst the lava flow, when it should have melted already. You can tell its the same car from the megaphone on the roof. (00:53:20 - 01:00:40)
Continuity mistake: When the train boss sacrifices himself by throwing the train driver over the lava flow, he only just manages to throw him past the flow. But in the following shots where it shows the other rescuers view of the lava flowing toward them, the position of them and the lava coming toward them mean they should be burnt by now. (00:59:40)
Continuity mistake: Before they build the lava dam, when Mike flips over a map on the hood of a truck to draw on it the map is clear of ash. In the next shot from across the hood the map is covered with ash. The next close up it is ash free again. (01:02:25)
Factual error: The volcanic ash that can be seen throughout the film is too big to be real. The ash shown is something like 1-2 cm in diameter. Volcanic ash is not that big in real life; it is not more than 2 millimetres in diameter. (01:02:30)
Suggested correction: There are different types of products from volcanic eruptions: Ash, lapilli, and bombs. Ash is what everybody knows as. Lapilli is about the size of pebbles. Bombs, as shown in the movie, are large rocks on fire that can explode as they did in the movie.
Suggested correction: This in the middle of a city, where various things were catching fire, so that ash might not be exclusively from the volcano, but from burning buildings and objects nearby.
Factual error: When the wall is built and they are waiting for the choppers, we see the different news people. There is one firefighter leaning on top of the wall. The lava would be way too hot for anyone to be so close. (01:12:20)
Continuity mistake: Near the end, when the big black guy shake hands with the cop, the blonde haired cop standing next to him is looking to his right, yet in the following shot he is looking to his left. (01:12:40)
Continuity mistake: Near the end, Roark and Amy are standing over the grid in the street, and when Roark says something like, "I'm not letting you go down there it's too dangerous," Amy is looking down at the grid in the road, but in the following shot she is looking directly at Roark. (01:14:40)
