The tragedy of the Krakatoa eruption. Unique eruption Basic information about Krakatoa volcano

The roar of the devastating and disastrous eruption of the Krakatoa volcano on August 26, 1883 was the loudest sound mankind has ever heard. 200,000 people died from fire, molten lava, falling debris, ash and a tsunami caused by a deafening explosion that reached a height of 36 meters.

What perhaps is greatest disaster in world history, occurred on August 27, 1883, when an eruption tore apart Krakatoa, a volcanic island lying in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Sumatra and Java.

More than 20 cubic kilometers of debris and ash, as well as a plume of steam 11 meters in diameter, shot into the atmosphere after the loudest explosion known to mankind since its inception. The resulting shock waves circled the Earth 7 times, creating a 36-meter-high tsunami and a tidal wave that killed 36,000 people.

The final death toll reached 200,000 and would likely have been higher had Krakatoa been an inhabited island. But it was an unattractive fragment of a volcano that may have erupted in the same way in prehistoric times. The string of islands that form the Kandang ridge along the southeastern coast of Java, it is likely, once constituted one huge volcano. There is no doubt that the contiguous islands of Perbowatan, Danan and Rakata formed part of the prehistoric caldera or summit edges of the ancient huge volcano, which included Krakatoa.

The volcano lay dormant from 1680 to 1883, and the 1680 eruption ejected only volcanic glass from the Perbovatan vent. It was from the same hole that the primary emissions occurred on May 20, 1883. These were small and so insignificant explosions that a group of curious Europeans booked a steamer on May 27 to visit the island and see what one member of the perilous foray described as “a vast column of steam issuing with a terrifying noise from an opening about 27 meters wide”, nearby from the Perbovatan crater. The team also noticed that the islands of Rakata and Verlaten were covered in fine ash and that the vegetation had died, although not burned.

From that day until June 19, everything was calm. Then small eruptions resumed and the area changed for the worse.

On August 11, 1883, Captain Fersenar, who led a topographic survey group on the neighboring island of Bant, set foot on the shore of the island of Krakatoa. The ground shook under his feet. And the worst thing was that the surrounding landscape looked somehow strange world: The entire island was covered with a half-meter layer of ash. Three columns of steam rose into the sky, and 11 new eruption centers, which did not exist before May, threw out clouds of ash and steam. Overwhelmed by horror, the captain collected the necessary data in a couple of hours and left the island.

For two weeks, until August 26, activity subsided, then a roar was heard and emissions appeared. On August 26 at 13.00, the first explosions of Krakatoa rattled the windows of houses on the neighboring islands. From the volcano, cracks spread out in all directions in the soil. At 14.00 a huge cloud rose over Krakatau, reaching a height of 27 kilometers. The fires of St. Elma. The captain of the ship, located 65 kilometers from Krakatoa, wrote: “Krakatoa was terribly magnificent, it resembled a huge wall pierced by zigzag lightning, and lazy snakes of linear lightning played above it. These sparkling flashes were real manifestations of angry fire...”

Other volcanoes in the Java chain, once part of the same prehistoric mountain, also began to erupt. Krakatoa's explosions grew in intensity until 17.00, when the first tidal waves formed and hit neighboring islands and flooded fishing villages together with the residents, and at the same time washed away all the ships.
All night until the morning of August 27, explosions and roars continued. Tremors on nearby islands caused stone walls to collapse, lamps to shatter, and gas meters to fly out of sockets. At a distance of 160 kilometers - in Java and Batavia - the roar was such that everyone woke up. The houses shook as if heavy artillery were passing nearby.

Between 4.40 and 6.40 several large tidal waves spread from Krakatoa, possibly caused by further destruction of the northern part of the island.

By 10 o'clock in the morning the rehearsal was over and it was time for the main action. Two people observed what was happening and recorded their observations: the Dutch scientist R. Hewitt and the clipper sailor from Liverpool R.D. Dalby. Hewitt watched from a mountain near the town of Angier, which west coast islands of Java. He later described everything he saw in the book “Fires and Floods from Earthquakes”:

“... Looking towards the island of Krakatoa, which is approximately 48 kilometers away in the Sunda Strait, I suddenly saw the movement of small boats in the bay. It seemed as if a magnet was pulling them out of their quiet hiding place, and they floated away in the same direction, guided, like the Flying Dutchman, by an invisible hand. A moment later they disappeared, swallowed up by a powerful boiling abyss of fire and water. And right across the bay, the line of fire seemed to stretch towards the island. Earth's crust under the bay it cracked, and it was as if all the flames of hell had broken through to the surface of the waters. The sea rushed into the chasm, carrying all the boats to their death. Hissing steam complemented this hell...”

Sailor Dalby described his impressions as follows:

“It got darker and darker. The already loud roar intensified, and now it seemed to be heard all around us. The gusts of wind grew into such a hurricane that none of us had experienced before. The wind turned into a kind of dense mass, sweeping away everything in front of it, roaring like a monstrous motor, and howling piercingly in the rig, like a devil in torment. The darkness thickened, but bright lightning, which almost blinded us, sparkled everywhere. The thunder would be deafening...

... When we caught a glimpse of the sky, we noticed a terrible disturbance there: the clouds were rushing by with great speed, and it seems to me that most of us decided that we were in the whirlwind of a cyclone. But as the noise got louder and louder, I thought it was something volcanic. Especially when tons of dust started falling from the sky around noon. It resembled a gray sandy substance, and since we were wearing only cotton clothes, we were soon completely out of breath: burnt, dirty and almost blind.

Visibility at this time was approximately a meter. I felt abandoned and groped my way along the deck, constantly clinging to something at hand. You cannot imagine the strength of that wind. From time to time I met others in the same condition as myself, but completely unrecognizable - just gray objects moving in the dark. One day I noticed a pair of distraught eyes - the eyes of a poor old coolie looking out from under the boat.

None of us will ever be able to describe the noise, especially one strong explosion around noon, which is considered the loudest sound ever heard on earth... It came from the top of Krakatoa straight into the sky... The skies seemed like a continuous flash of flame, the clouds took such fantastic shapes that looked strikingly unnatural; sometimes they hung down like curls. Some are shiny black, others are dirty white...”

The sailor was almost right. A powerful build-up of pressure beneath the Earth tore the Krakatoa cone apart, throwing approximately 20 cubic kilometers of erupted material into a cloud that rose 80 kilometers into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, debris from the former cones of Danan, Perbowatan and Rakata collapsed and sank into the sea, turning it into a boiling cauldron.

The sound of the explosion was so strong that it was heard at a distance of more than 4,800 kilometers. And the shock waves circled the Earth 7 times. On Rodrigues Island Indian Ocean 4,800 kilometers from Krakatoa, a coastal security observer recorded the sound exactly 4 hours after the eruption. In Central Australia, 3,600 kilometers southeast of Krakatoa, sound was also recorded. In Western Australia, 2,700 kilometers away, on the plains of Victoria, flocks of sheep began to stampede at the sound of a volcanic eruption. The sound was also heard throughout the United States.

In the Krakatoa region, pitch darkness fell over the area, plunging an area over a radius of more than 400 kilometers into early night. At a distance of 200 kilometers, darkness lasted 22 hours, at a distance of 80 kilometers - 57 hours. Ships located 2,500 kilometers away reported that dust began to fall on the deck three days after the eruption.

As if with the wave of a conductor’s baton, all the Java volcanoes began to erupt. Papandayan split into pieces, and 7 of its cracks threw boiling lava down onto the slopes. In the Malay Archipelago, 130 square kilometers of the island of Java exploded and disappeared into the sea - from Point Capuchine to Negeri Passorang.

And then one of the most terrible, most destructive consequences of the eruption arose - the tsunami.
A seismic tidal wave formed about half an hour after the catastrophic explosion, it roared onto the coasts of Java and Sumatra, partially or completely destroying 295 settlements and killing 36,000 people (according to some sources, 80,000 people died).

According to the engineer from the ship “Ludon” N. van San-dik, the scene was terrible. He wrote:
"How high mountain, a monstrous wave rushed onto land. Immediately after it, three more waves of colossal size appeared. And before our eyes, this terrifying shift of the sea instantly swallowed up the ruins of the city in one sweeping passage; the lighthouse fell, and the houses in the city were swept away with one blow, like houses of cards. It's all over. Where the town of Telok Betong lived a few minutes ago, there was a sea... We could not find words to describe the terrible state we were in after this disaster. Like a thunderbolt, the suddenness of the changing light, the unexpected devastation that ended in an instant before our eyes, all this stunned us...”

New volcanic mountains rose from the sea; the islands rose and disappeared along with their inhabitants. In Angier and Batavia, the tsunami washed 2,800 people into the sea; at Bantam, 1,500 people drowned. The captain of the Loudon, having survived the tsunami, hurried to Angers to warn the Dutch fort. He found the entire garrison dead, with the exception of one sailor who was wandering among the corpses. The islands of Steers, Midach, Calmeyer, Verlaten, Siuku and Silesi disappeared under water along with their population.

Of the 2,500 workers at the quarry, which was previously located at an altitude of 46 meters above sea level, only two local residents and a government accountant were saved after the island was flooded. A German warship located beyond Sumatra was caught by the tsunami and thrown almost 3 kilometers deep into the island, where it landed in the forest at an altitude of 9 meters above sea level.

Those island residents who managed to escape the water were bombarded with hot debris and lava. Similar “rains” killed 900 people in Warlong and 300 in Talatoa. Fire stones and lava destroyed the village of Tamarang, killing 1,800 people.

On the night of August 27 and the morning of August 28, the area was rocked by three more less intense eruptions. After this, the volcano finally calmed down. Seaman R. D. Dalby reported the destruction as follows:
“In place of the luxurious vegetation there was nothing left but a barren brown desert. The coasts of both Java and Sumatra seemed torn to pieces and burned out. A wide variety of debris floated past us. Huge rafts of vegetation on which we saw huge frogs, snakes and other strange reptiles. And the sharks! The very sight of them was disgusting. As for our ship, we painted it and tarred the rigging, and now it looked as if we had been caught in a shower of mustard.”

The echo of the explosions echoed across the globe. Robert Ballin, in his book The Origins of the Earth, wrote: “Every particle of our atmosphere rang with a huge eruption. In the UK the sound waves passed over our heads; the air in the streets and in the houses trembled with a volcanic impulse. The oxygen that fed our lungs also responded to the greatest fluctuation that occurred 16,000 kilometers away.”

For months, the skies around the globe glowed, prompting Lord Alfred Tennyson to describe the phenomenon in verse in “St. Telemachus":
“Are the fiery remains
some kind of fiery sand
They threw themselves so high that they sprayed
over the entire globe?
Day after day of blood-red sunsets
angry evenings sparkled.”

Two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa has disappeared. Where before the explosion above the sea at an altitude of 120-420 meters
The land extended, there was nothing but a large depression at the bottom of the sea, reaching a depth of 270 meters.
Strange glow and optical phenomena persisted for several months after the eruption. In some places above the Earth, the sun appeared blue and the moon appeared bright green. And the movement of dust particles ejected by the eruption in the atmosphere allowed scientists to establish the presence of a “jet” stream.

Anak Krakatoa Volcano

On December 29, 1927, on the site of the destroyed Krakatoa volcano, a new one arose, named Anak-Krakatoa (Child of Krakatoa). The island appeared in the center of three islands that once made up the Krakatoa volcano. Today its height is about 300 meters with a diameter of about three to four kilometers. Since its inception, Anak Krakatau has experienced 5 major eruptions. Anak Krakatau has grown an average of 13 centimeters per week since 1950. The volcano is active. Small eruptions have occurred regularly since 1994.

Eruption of Krakatoa volcano in August 1883 was one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in modern history. It is estimated that more than 36,000 people died. Many of them died as a result of thermal trauma from the explosions and many more were victims of the tsunami that followed the collapse of the volcano in the caldera below sea level. The eruption also affected the climate and caused temperatures to drop around the world.

Eruption of Krakatoa 1883

The island of Krakatoa is located in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. It is part of the Indonesian Island Arc. Volcanic activity and the eruption of Krakatoa occurred as a result of the subduction of the Indo-Australian tectonic plate as it moves north towards the Asian mainland. The island is about 3 km wide and 5.5 km wide (9 by 5 kilometers). Before the historic eruption, it had three interconnected volcanic peaks: Perboewatan, the northernmost and most active; Danane in the middle; and the largest, Rakata, forming the southern tip of the island. Krakatoa and two nearby islands, Lang and Verlatan, are remnants of a previous large eruption that left an underwater caldera between them.

Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.

In May 1883, the captain of the German ship Elisabeth reported seeing ash clouds over Krakatoa. They were more than 6 miles (9.6 km) high. Over the next two months, commercial ships and chartered survey boats visited the straits and reported thunderous noises and incandescent clouds. People on neighboring islands held festivals to celebrate natural fireworks illuminated by the night sky. On August 27, the celebration stopped.

Krakatoa volcano explosion 1883

At 12:53 pm on Sunday the 26th, the initial explosion of the eruption released a cloud of gas and debris approximately 15 miles (24 km) into the air above Perroveatan. It is believed that debris from earlier eruptive activity must have plugged the neck of the cone, allowing for construction in the magma chamber. On the morning of the 27th, four huge explosions heard as far away as Perth, Australia, some 2,800 miles (4,500 km) away, plunged Perbewatan and Danana into the caldera below the sea.

The initial explosion of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883 destroyed magma chamber and allowed the seawater to contact the hot lava. The result is known as a phreatomagmatic event. The water boiled, creating a cushion of superheated steam that supported pyroclastic flows up to 40 miles (40 km) at speeds in excess of 62 mph (100 km/h). The eruption is rated 6 on the Volcanic Explosions Index and is estimated to have had an explosive force of 200 megatons of TNT. (By comparison, the bomb that devastated Hiroshima had a force of 20 kilotons, almost ten thousand times less explosive than the Krakatoa explosion. The Krakatoa explosion was ten times more explosive than the 1980 St. Helens bombing).

Victims of the volcano

Tephra (fragments of volcanic rock) and hot volcanic gases overcome many casualties in West Java and Sumatra, but thousands died from the devastating tsunami. The wall of water, about 120 feet high, was created by the collapse of a volcano into the sea. It completely overwhelmed the small nearby islands. Residents of coastal towns in Java and Sumatra fled to higher ground, fighting with their neighbors to cling to the cliffs. One hundred and sixty-five coastal villages were destroyed. The steamer Berouw was carried nearly a mile from land in Sumatra; all 28 crew members were killed. Another ship, Loudon, was tied nearby. The captain of the ship Lindemann managed to overcome the wave, and the ship was able to drive along the crest. Looking back, the crew and passengers saw that nothing remained of beautiful city where they were at anchor.

The explosions sent about 11 cubic miles (45 cubic kilometers) of debris into the atmosphere, up to 275 miles (442 km) from the volcano. IN close proximity, dawn did not return for three days. Ash fell as far as 3,775 miles (6,076 km), landing on ships in the northwest. Barographs around the world have documented that shock waves in the atmosphere have circulated around the planet at least seven times. Within 13 days, a layer of sulfur dioxide and other gases began to filter the amount of sunlight able to reach Earth. Atmospheric effects were created during spectacular sunsets throughout Europe and the United States. Average global temperatures over the next five years were 1.2 degrees lower.

Explosion of Mount Tambora in 1815

Although the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano is rightfully considered one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions of modern times, Krakatoa was not the largest eruption in history. modern history Indonesia. This "honor" refers to the eruption of Mount Tambora on April 10, 1815. Krakatoa ranks third on the list based on explosive power and destruction.
Tambora is the only eruption in modern history to rate a VEI of 7. Global temperatures were an average of five degrees colder due to this eruption; even in the United States, 1816 was known as the "year without a summer." Cultures failed all over the world, and in Europe and the United States the unexpected result was the invention of the wheel as horses became too expensive to feed.

Anak Krakatoa

Anak Krakatoa, "Child of Krakatoa", grew out of a caldera and periodically erupts.

In 1927, some Javanese fishermen were struck by a plume of steam and debris began to erupt from the collapsed caldera. Krakatoa has awakened after 44 years of peace. Within a few weeks, the edge of the new cone appeared above sea level. A year later he turned into small island, which was called Anak Krakatoa, or Child of Krakatoa. Anak Krakatoa grew periodically, although gently and with little danger to the surrounding islands. The last eruption was on March 31, 2014. It registered VEI 1.

Volcano Krakatoa: photos

Several photos of Krakatoa volcano and Anak Krakatoa

Krakatoa volcano NASA satellite photo

Volcano Krakatoa

Sunda Bay, located at the junction of the Eurasian and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, is one of the few places on the planet where the cycle of destruction and rebirth periodically resumes. During another volcanic eruption that occurred here about a million years ago, a cone-shaped mountain was formed. The height of the new geological formation was 2100 meters, 300 of which were hidden by water. Local residents named the newborn volcano “Krakatoa”. Presumably, this word reminded them of the cries of the parrots that lived on it.

Krakatoa activity

The Krakatoa volcano has always been very turbulent. Surviving written sources indicate frequent strong eruptions that frightened the local population. In 416, the top of the mountain collapsed, and in its place a crater appeared, parts of which became separate islands. And in 535, Krakatoa caused another natural disaster that contributed to the formation of the Sunda Strait, which has since separated Sumatra and Java.

Volcanologists believe that Krakatoa was responsible for five violent eruptions. But at the end of the 19th century, the volcano, which had remained calm for the previous 200 years and was considered extinct, suddenly came to life. At the end of May 1883, ash fell from its crater, and mushroom clouds appeared over the top of the volcano - these were the first signs of the eruption that had begun, which lasted three months with increasing force. Throughout the summer, Krakatoa ejected rock from the bowels of the earth, and on August 27 the eruption culminated. At 10 a.m., the volcano was torn apart by a monstrous explosion that threw ash, pumice and rocks up to 80 kilometers into the air and then scattered them over an area of about 1 million square kilometers.

The power of the eruption was more than 10,000 times greater than the force of the explosion of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The roar accompanying the cataclysm was the loudest sound that people had ever heard, and was clearly audible over a radius of 4,000 kilometers. On the islands of Sumatra and Java, the sound intensity exceeded 180 decibels, which far exceeds the human pain threshold. The power of the explosion was such that even at a distance of 150 kilometers from its epicenter, the shock wave broke windows, demolished roofs of houses, and felled trees. On the island of Sesebi, located 20 kilometers from the Krakatau volcano, the entire population died in an instant, scorched by a hot gas cloud. Clouds of ash obscured the sun, and almost complete darkness fell over a radius of more than 100 kilometers. Four hours after the disaster began solar eclipse also covered Japan.

But the worst was yet to come - the eruption triggered a huge 30-meter tsunami that washed away more than 300 settlements into the ocean. The disaster claimed the lives of more than 36,000 people, and some estimates put the number as high as 80,000.

54 minutes after the first explosion, a second explosion followed, equally powerful, but without the accompanying tsunami. A few hours later, a third fiery outbreak occurred. All night the volcano was rocked by explosions, ash rained from the sky, and the sea reared with huge waves. Powerful currents carried numerous fishing boats into the depths of the ocean.

Just 10 hours after the eruption began air wave, provoked by a volcanic explosion, reached Berlin at a speed of 1000 kilometers per hour. And for several days, meteorological stations in Germany recorded the passage of air currents driven by the blast wave.

In the following days, the eruption began to gradually weaken, but it took Krakatoa six months to completely subside. Until February 1884, the exhausted island was shaken by explosions. But the consequences of the disaster made themselves felt for a long time - the ash remained in the earth’s atmosphere for several years, which caused a cooling of the planet’s climate.

The presence of microparticles erupted by the volcano in the air led to the unusual coloring of sunrises and sunsets. After natural disaster the luminary was painted in greenish tones, and in autumn in Europe the sun's rays at sunset cast a purple color.

The volcano itself was destroyed by a natural disaster - only three small islands remained from it. The area around Krakatau also became different - the topography of the seabed changed, some straits became unnavigable, new islands formed, and the old ones became larger. The islands of Sumatra and Java are deserted. Lush tropical vegetation died, the earth became bare and gray, the entire soil was strewn with stones, pieces of solidified lava, mutilated trees, corpses of people and animals. In the sea around the volcano, such a thick layer of pumice formed that ships could not break through it.

Strong rough waters were observed along the entire coast of the Indian Ocean. I was restless Pacific Ocean, storms raged off the western coasts of the American continents. The tsunami even reached the coast of France and the Isthmus of Panama.

For many days, the Earth's atmosphere was also disturbed - hurricanes raged in the region close to Krakatoa, and strong fluctuations were noted on the barometers of the entire planet.

Late November in many places European continent Precipitation fell with a large admixture of volcanic ash and tiny particles of pumice.

Krakatoa volcano after the cataclysm

Several decades after the eruption, the fire-breathing mountain began to be reborn. In the winter of 1927, an underwater eruption occurred on the site of the destroyed Krakatoa. A few days after this event, a small 9-meter volcano appeared above the water, named by the people watching it with alarm “Anuk Krakatoa”, which means “Child of Krakatoa”. The formidable crumb, consisting of pumice and ash, was destroyed several times, but after three years, intense lava flows formed a new volcano. By 1933, the baby’s cone had already grown to 67 meters.

Since 1950, Anuk Krakatau has been actively growing in height due to small but frequent eruptions - every week its height increases by 13 centimeters, i.e. almost 7 meters per year. Currently, the young volcano has grown to 813 meters, its area is 10.5 sq. km, and its diameter is 4 kilometers. The last activity recorded on Anuk Krakatoa was in mid-February 2014, when more than 200 volcanic earthquakes occurred. But for now, the danger of a growing baby is assessed as 2 points on a 4-point system.

Indonesian authorities do not allow local residents to settle in a three-kilometer zone around the island. Economic activity prohibited within a radius of 1.5 km from Anouk Krakatoa; tourists and fishermen are not allowed to approach the island at the same distance.

Some volcanologists believe that over time the activity of the growing volcano will increase. More optimistic scientists believe that the small size of the young Krakatoa will not allow it to cause a planet-wide catastrophe again.

Using the example of a cataclysm that occurred on a volcano, nature demonstrated its extraordinary ability to recover - after three years, ferns began to appear on the lifeless rocks of nearby islands, then flowering plants and insects. By the end of the 19th century, life returned to the islands that suffered from a volcanic disaster - mangrove forests and jungles were revived, animals and people settled here.

On the Javanese peninsula of Ujung Kulon, located only 133 kilometers from the Krakatoa volcano, a national natural park is founded, where wild forest bull, red wolf, gibbon, and clouded leopard live. The last remaining Javan rhinoceroses on Earth, of which there are no more than 50 individuals, have found refuge in the reserve. In 1992, the park, which includes the volcano, was taken under UNESCO protection to preserve the largest lowland rain forest growing here.

On Anouk Krakatau itself, the area is quite deserted, only on one side of the island there is a small forest, in which you can see the remains of weather stations destroyed by frequent eruptions. The consequences of the explosion are visible even now - where there used to be a mountain, a recess concave inward is clearly visible. Coastline The islands are constantly changing due to eruptions. The smoke comes not only from the crater of the volcano, but oozes from all the cracks of the mountain, creating the impression that the earth is constantly burning. At the foot of Krakatoa, hills of black volcanic sand alternate with lava and ash.

Krakatoa fascinates with an exciting sense of danger, and there are many brave people who dream of seeing and capturing the majestic spectacle - active volcano, surrounded by pillars of ash and spewing millions of fiery spray!

Tourist information

If you want to see Krakatoa with your own eyes, then you need to fly to Jakarta, from where you can take a bus to the port of Darkness. From the sea harbor you need to take a ferry to the port of Bakuaheni in Sumatra, then take a bus to Kalyanda. Here you can rent a boat and sail to Krakatau on your own, but it would be wiser to purchase a tour, which is offered at every hotel. A trip with a guide and lunch will cost $60-70. Serve sightseeing tours comfortable passenger ships.

You can also rent a boat in the ports of the island of Java; the most convenient way to do this is in Carita Bay, located just 50 kilometers from Krakatoa.

Although access to the volcano is now closed, during its period of relative peace it is possible to land on the coast and even climb the slopes of Anuk to a height of 500 meters. To climb Krakatoa, you need to choose comfortable shoes with corrugated soles that can protect your feet from the hot sand. You cannot rise higher than half a kilometer - the closer you are to the crater, the greater the possibility of the formation of voids into which you can fall, as well as become a victim of stones thrown out from time to time by the volcano.

It is also possible one day excursion to Krakatoa with an overnight stay at its foot.

What is perhaps the greatest disaster in world history occurred on August 27, 1883, when an eruption tore apart Krakatoa, a volcanic island lying in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Sumatra and Java.

The volcano lay dormant from 1680 to 1883, and the 1680 eruption ejected only volcanic glass from the Perbovatan vent. It was from the same hole that the primary emissions occurred on May 20, 1883. These were small and so insignificant explosions that a group of curious Europeans booked a steamer on May 27 to visit the island and see what one member of the perilous foray described as "a vast column of steam issuing with a terrifying noise from an opening about 27 meters wide" nearby. from the Perbovatan crater. The team also noticed that the islands of Rakata and Verlaten were covered in fine ash and that the vegetation had died, although not burned.

From that day until June 19, everything was calm. Then small eruptions resumed and the area changed for the worse.

On August 11, 1883, Captain Fersenar, who led a topographic survey group on the neighboring island of Bant, set foot on the shore of the island of Krakatoa. The ground shook under his feet. And the worst thing is that the surrounding landscape looked like some kind of strange world: the entire island was covered with a half-meter layer of ash. Three columns of steam rose into the sky, and 11 new eruption centers, which did not exist before May, threw out clouds of ash and steam. Overwhelmed by horror, the captain collected the necessary data in a couple of hours and left the island.

For two weeks, until August 26, activity subsided, then a roar was heard and emissions appeared. On August 26 at 13.00, the first explosions of Krakatoa rattled the windows of houses on the neighboring islands. From the volcano, cracks spread out in all directions in the soil. At 14.00 a huge cloud rose over Krakatau, reaching a height of 27 kilometers. The fires of St. Elma. The captain of the ship, located 65 kilometers from Krakatoa, wrote: “Krakatoa was terribly magnificent, it resembled a huge wall, pierced by zigzag lightning, and lazy snakes of linear lightning played above it. These sparkling flashes were real manifestations of angry fire...”

Other volcanoes in the Java chain, once part of the same prehistoric mountain, also began to erupt. The explosions of Krakatoa increased until 17.00, when the first tidal waves formed, which hit the neighboring islands and flooded the fishing villages along with the inhabitants, and at the same time washed away all the ships.
All night until the morning of August 27, explosions and roars continued. Tremors on nearby islands caused stone walls to collapse, lamps to shatter, and gas meters to fly out of sockets. At a distance of 160 kilometers - in Java and Batavia - the roar was such that everyone woke up. The houses shook as if heavy artillery were passing nearby.

Between 4.40 and 6.40 several large tidal waves spread from Krakatoa, possibly caused by further destruction of the northern part of the island.

By 10 o'clock in the morning the rehearsal was over and it was time for the main action. Two people observed what was happening and recorded their observations: the Dutch scientist R. Hewitt and the clipper sailor from Liverpool R.D. Dalby. Hewitt watched from a mountain near the town of Angier, on the west coast of Java. He later described everything he saw in the book “Fires and Floods from Earthquakes”:

"... Looking towards the island of Krakatoa, which is about 48 kilometers away in the Sunda Strait, I suddenly saw the movement of small boats in the bay. It seemed as if a magnet was pulling them out of a calm shelter, and they were sailing away in the same direction, guided , like the "Flying Dutchman", by an invisible hand. A moment later they disappeared, swallowed up by a powerful boiling abyss of fire and water. And right across the bay, it seemed that the line of fire was stretching towards the island. The earth's crust under the bay cracked, and it was as if all the flames of hell had broken through to surface of the waters. The sea rushed into the chasm, carrying all the boats to their death. Hissing steam complemented this hell..."

Sailor Dalby described his impressions as follows:

"It became darker and darker. The already loud roar intensified, and now it seemed to be heard all around us. The gusts of wind grew into such a hurricane that none of us had experienced before. The wind turned into a kind of dense mass that swept away everything in front of us." itself, roaring like a monstrous engine, and howling piercingly in the rig, like a devil in torment. The darkness thickened, but bright lightning, which almost blinded us, sparkled everywhere. The thunder would have been deafening...

When we caught a glimpse of the sky, we noticed a terrible disturbance there: the clouds were rushing by with great speed, and I think most of us decided that we were in the whirlwind of a cyclone. But as the noise got louder and louder, I thought it was something volcanic. Especially when tons of dust started falling from the sky around noon. It resembled a gray sandy substance, and since we were wearing only cotton clothes, we were soon completely out of breath: burnt, dirty and almost blind.

None of us will ever be able to describe the noise, especially one strong explosion around noon, which is considered the loudest sound ever heard on earth... It came from the top of Krakatoa straight into the sky... The heavens seemed like a continuous flash of flame, clouds took on such fantastic forms that they looked amazingly unnatural; sometimes they hung down like curls. Some are shiny black, others are dirty white..."

The sound of the explosion was so strong that it was heard at a distance of more than 4,800 kilometers. And the shock waves circled the Earth 7 times. On Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean, 4,800 kilometers from Krakatoa, a coastal security observer recorded the sound exactly 4 hours after the eruption. In Central Australia, 3,600 kilometers southeast of Krakatoa, sound was also recorded. In Western Australia, 2,700 kilometers away, on the plains of Victoria, flocks of sheep began to stampede at the sound of a volcanic eruption. The sound was also heard throughout the United States.

According to the engineer from the ship "Ludon" N. van Sandik, the scene was terrible. He wrote:

“Like a high mountain, a monstrous wave rushed onto the land. Immediately after it, three more waves of colossal size appeared. And before our eyes, this terrifying shift of the sea instantly swallowed up the ruins of the city in one sweeping passage; the lighthouse fell, and the houses in the city were swept away with one blow , like houses of cards. It was all over. Where the town of Telok Betong lived a few minutes ago, there was a sea... We could not find words to describe the terrible state we were in after this disaster. Like a thunderbolt, the suddenness of the changing light, the unexpected devastation that ended in an instant before our eyes, all this stunned us..."

“In place of the luxurious vegetation, there was nothing left but a barren brown desert. The shores of both Java and Sumatra seemed broken into pieces and burned out. A wide variety of debris floated past us. Huge rafts of vegetation, on which we saw huge frogs, snakes and others strange reptiles. And sharks! Just the sight of them was disgusting. As for our ship, we painted it and tarred the rigging, and now it looked as if we had been caught in a shower of mustard."

The echo of the explosions echoed across the globe. Robert Ballin, in his book The Origins of the Earth, wrote: "Every particle of our atmosphere rang with a huge eruption. In Great Britain, sound waves passed over our heads; the air in the streets and in houses trembled with the volcanic impulse. The oxygen that fed our lungs also reacted to the greatest fluctuation, which took place 16,000 kilometers away."

For months, the sky over the entire globe glowed, prompting Lord Alfred Tennyson to describe the phenomenon in verse in St. Telemachus:

"Are there fiery remains?
some kind of fiery sand
They threw themselves so high that they sprayed
over the entire globe?
Day after day of blood-red sunsets
angry evenings sparkled".

Two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa has disappeared. Where before the explosion the land stretched above the sea at an altitude of 120-420 meters, there was nothing but a large depression at the bottom of the sea, reaching a depth of 270 meters.

The strange glow and optical phenomena persisted for several months after the eruption. In some places above the Earth, the sun appeared blue and the moon appeared bright green. And the movement of dust particles ejected by the eruption in the atmosphere allowed scientists to establish the presence of a “jet” stream.

Volcanoes have always played a huge role in the life of mankind. The terrible consequences of eruptions change the fate of not only individual people, but also entire nations and civilizations. Let's remember one such volcano with the thundering name Krakatoa.

The eruptions of three volcanoes are considered the most terrible in the history of mankind. In 79, Vesuvius, having destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, claimed about 16 thousand lives. In 1902, the Mont Pelee volcano on the island of Martinique destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre in a few minutes. Out of thirty thousand of its inhabitants, two were saved. The worst disaster is considered to be the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. This cataclysm was notable not only for the largest number of direct victims, but also for unexplained phenomena, some of which are still classified as paranormal.

The small uninhabited island of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra has served as an excellent reference point for seafarers for centuries. The pointed mountain, idyllically overgrown with palm trees, sometimes quietly smoked, but no one paid attention to it. Small volcanoes are not uncommon in those parts, but this one is memorable local residents always behaved peacefully. None of the Malays remembered that in 1680 Krakatoa burned the jungle on its spurs with lava flows. And the fact that in the 7th century it was thanks to a terrible volcanic eruption that the isthmus between the two islands disappeared and the Sunda Strait was formed, scientists learned only in the second half of the 20th century.

Krakatoa awoke from its slumber on May 20, 1883. Smoke rose above its crater in a column, sometimes clouds of volcanic dust and pieces of pumice flew into the air, and residents of nearby islands felt weak tremors. Little attention was paid to this - well, the dishes will rattle a little, no big deal. On June 24, two huge sinkholes appeared on the slopes of Krakatoa, and smoke poured out of the new craters. On August 11, a group of Dutch volcanologists visited the island and examined the new vents. The scientists were lucky - they managed to get away from Krakatoa before the worst began.

On August 26, Krakatoa rumbled. In the afternoon, a column of thick black smoke rose to a height of 30 kilometers. Clouds of volcanic dust obscured the sun. The coasts of Java and Sumatra were plunged into darkness for several days, through which lightning flashed. The frequency and power of explosions and tremors were increasing. By 17:00 one of its slopes collapsed into the volcano. Coastal villages experienced the first impacts of the tsunami waves, which were still relatively small. Explosions and tremors were repeated every ten minutes. Ships sailing through the Sunda Strait had their compasses malfunction, and their masts were decorated with St. Elmo's lights.

At half past five in the morning on August 27, the first terrible blow was heard. With increasing force, explosions were repeated at 6:44, 9:58 and 10:52. The most powerful of them was the penultimate one, during which, most likely, the entire volcano finally collapsed. The roar was heard even in Australia at a distance of almost 5 thousand kilometers. The shock wave of this explosion circled the globe four times. It was recorded by all weather stations in the world. According to modern scientists, the Krakatoa explosion was 10 thousand times stronger than the explosion of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Floating pieces of pumice ejected from the volcano covered the sea within a radius of forty kilometers - it seemed as if a wide pontoon bridge had been thrown across the entire Sunda Strait.

The eruption brought death and destruction to the surrounding islands. The sea water that poured into the collapsed volcano swelled into a thirty-meter hump and hit the coast of the strait with terrible force. The tsunami swept 11 kilometers deep into the territory, destroying everything in its path. On the hills where the wave did not hit, people died from burns and suffocation due to hot gases and ash. In total, more than 36 thousand people became victims of Krakatoa. 300 cities and villages ceased to exist.

Explosions continued with decreasing force throughout the next day. In Java and Sumatra, a constant roar was heard, the shock wave throwing open the surviving doors and windows of houses. But there was no more destruction. Krakatau expended all its power on August 27 in four terrible explosions. When the waves subsided in the strait, it was discovered that less than a third of the island remained. The volcanic cone sank to a depth of a quarter of a kilometer.

Ash, pumice and pieces of rock rose into the stratosphere to a height of 70 kilometers. The total volume of emissions exceeded 19 km3. For several years, throughout the entire Earth, they caused interesting meteorological phenomena: sunrises and sunsets took on unusual colors, and the Moon sometimes also changed shades. Some art historians suggest that Edvard Munch's famous painting “The Scream” (1893) depicts the sky over Norway changing color precisely after the explosion of Krakatoa.

The destructive eruption immediately attracted the attention of scientists. The exact time of the disaster was established thanks to the English captain Watson, whose ship, passing through the Sunda Strait, was closest to Krakatoa and managed to withstand the tsunami. Using the ship's chronometer, Watson recorded, to the nearest second, logbook the time of the most terrible explosions. Just two days after the cataclysm, a detailed report on it was compiled by the Dutch geologist R. D. M. Vierbeck. He lived in West Java and immediately, as soon as the explosions stopped, he hurried to the devastated areas. His meticulous description of the state of the flourishing islands a week ago attracted the attention of the Royal Society of London. British scientists established a special committee, which, although it did not go to the site of the eruption, collected a huge amount of data about the disaster and carefully analyzed it. The reason for the eruption of Krakatau today is beyond doubt - the volcano was at the junction of two tectonic plates, the mutual movement of which towards each other caused seismic activity.

An incident that occurred on the other side of the Earth almost simultaneously with the explosion of Krakatoa, and directly related to it, remained unexplained. Late in the evening of August 26, tired Boston Globe reporter Edward Samson took a nap right in the editorial office. He had a terrible dream: some dark-skinned people were running, trying to escape from a huge wave and stones falling from the sky. Their cries about some kind of “Prolap” were drowned in a terrible roar, the sky was covered with darkness with fiery flashes and reflections of lightning. The wave caught up with the fleeing people and, having subsided, left behind a dead, lifeless space. As often happens in dreams, it was clear to Samson that everything was happening somewhere in the vicinity of Java. Waking up in a cold sweat, he grabbed his editorial notebook and described in detail what he had dreamed. Apparently, Edward was going to use these notes for some kind of literary work, because in the margins he wrote “important!” Feeling completely defeated after such a nightmare, Samson went home.

The editor of the morning edition of the newspaper came to work and found his notebook on the reporter’s desk marked “important!” and sent the notes to the set. When Samson came to the office, his notes not only appeared on the front page of the Boston Globe, but had already been reprinted by several other American newspapers. Edward was horrified and explained that this was just an account of a dream. He was immediately fired, and the foul-mouthed editor sat down to compose a refutation text for the evening edition. But then telegrams began to arrive describing the terrible disaster in the Sunda Strait, the details of which completely coincided with the article in the Boston Globe. The prepared refutation was thrown into the trash, Samson was reinstated in his position and even a personal sofa was installed for him so that he would see prophetic dreams more often. A little later, cartography experts established the origin of the strange word “Prolap” - on ancient Dutch maps this is exactly what Krakatoa was called, in accordance with the local dialect.

Edward Samson's strange dream remains unexplained. Experts in paranormal phenomena cited this case (by the way, documented, with exact time the publication of the newspaper, and the first telegrams about the eruption) as proof of the existence of telepathy. Allegedly, a sleeping reporter in Boston “heard” the collective cry of horror of thousands of dying natives. True, paranormal specialists cannot explain why Samson was so lucky. Their opponents consider the mysterious incident to be a mere coincidence. By multiplying the number of volcanoes on earth, the number of reporters in the world, the frequency of recording their own dreams and other values, they establish the degree of probability of such an accident. This probability turns out to be so close to zero that all the calculations convince few people. Thus, no one has yet come up with a clear explanation for what happened to Edward Samson.

In 1927, after an underwater eruption in the Sunda Strait, a new cone rose above the sea surface in place of the volcano. He was named Anak-Krakatoa - Son of Krakatoa. The heir to the terrible volcano is growing at a rate of 13 centimeters per week. And today it has already risen above sea level by 813 meters. In 2014, the offspring became more active. Since then, the number of small volcanic earthquakes has already exceeded two hundred. Just in case, the 1.5-kilometer zone around Anak Krakatau is closed to tourists and fishermen. The little one has too bad heredity.

Anak Krakatoa, modern view

When Krakatoa exploded, the boom reached Alice Springs and Rodrigues Island. The red dots indicate the area where pumice was found floating on the ocean surface.