Krakatoa Volcano: 1883 Eruption facts

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The eruption of Krakatoa in August 1883 was one of the most deadly volcanic eruptions of modern history. It is estimated that more than 36,000 people died. Many died as a result of thermal injury from the blasts and many more were victims of the tsunamis that followed the collapse of the volcano into the caldera below sea level.

The island of Krakatau (Krakatoa) is in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. It is part of the Indonesian Island Arc. Volcanic activity is due to subduction of the Indo-Australian tectonic plate as it moves northward towards mainland Asia. The island is about 3 miles wide and 5.5 miles long (9 by 5 kilometers). Before the historic eruption, it had three linked volcanic peaks: Perboewatan, the northernmost and most active; Danan in the middle; and the largest, Rakata, forming the southern end of the island. Krakatau and the two nearby islands, Lang and Verlatan, are remnants of a previous large eruption that left an undersea caldera between them.

In May 1883, the captain of the Elizabeth, a German warship, reported seeing clouds of ash above Krakatau. He estimated them to be more than 6 miles (9.6 km) high. For the next two months, commercial vessels and chartered sightseeing boats frequented the strait and reported thundering noises and incandescent clouds. People on nearby islands held festivals celebrating the natural fireworks that lit the night sky. Celebration would come to a tragic halt on Aug. 27.

http://www.livescience.com/28186-krakatoa.html

[Abramelin]

One of the most deadly in terms of the number of victims of the blast itself or the ensuing tsunamis.

But this one, just a century earlier, appears to have had even more severe consequences:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki

The eruption has been estimated to have killed over six million people globally, making the eruption the deadliest in historical times.

[Keel M.]

My neighbour's son wrote a paper on this a few years ago about Krakatoa. I'd never heard of it before then. I haven't heard of the one you mention either Abramelin.

[Kowalski]

During the rainy summer of 1816, the "Year Without a Summer", the world was locked in a long cold volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815.^[6] Mary Shelley, aged 18, and her lover (and later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was consistently too cold and dreary that summer to enjoy the outdoor holiday activities they had planned, so the group retired indoors until dawn.

Among other subjects, the conversation turned to galvanism and the feasibility of returning a corpse or assembled body parts to life, and to the experiments of the 18th-century natural philosopher and poet Erasmus Darwin, who was said to have animated dead matter.^[7] Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company also amused themselves by reading German ghost stories translated into French from the book Fantasmagoriana,^[8] prompting Byron to suggest they each write their own supernatural tale. Shortly afterward, in a waking dream, Mary Shelley conceived the idea for Frankenstein:

I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for SUPREMELY frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

Mount Tambora eruption is the only eruption in modern history to rate a VEI of 7. Global temperatures were an average of five degrees cooler because of this eruption; even in the United States, 1816 was known as the “year without a summer.” Crops failed worldwide, and in Europe and the United States an unexpected outcome was the invention of the bicycle as horses became too expensive to feed.

Just thought this was interesting...

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One of the most deadly in terms of the number of victims of the blast itself or the ensuing tsunamis.

But this one, just a century earlier, appears to have had even more severe consequences:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki

The eruption has been estimated to have killed over six million people globally, making the eruption the deadliest in historical times.

Interesting, didn't hear about this one before either. Thx Abramelin.