Why in 1883

Despite losing two-thirds of its volume during the event, Anak Krakatau continued to grow. The volcano erupted again on April 10, , but fortunately, there was no widespread damage. This eruption was captured on April 13, by the Landsat 8 satellite.

Krakatau is referred to as the first scientifically well-recorded and studied eruption of a volcano. The observations made at Krakatau would be of great value to the study of colonization of devastated and newly formed landscapes, such as Mount St.

Helens in America. News about the eruption and its tsunamis traveled fast thanks to the recently installed worldwide telegraphic network. Courtesy of Library of Congress. Along with a volcano locations and volcanic ash advisory database, NCEI has assembled a wealth of information about historic volcanoes. Additionally, NCEI has a broad array of tsunami data and information.

According to the July 28, , U. Drought Monitor moderate to extreme drought covers According to the April 21, , U. Drought Monitor, moderate to extreme drought covers In New Zealand, the tsunami was observed at many locations around the country, and was first noticed late in the evening of 28 August at Mangonui, Lyttelton and Port Chalmers about hours after the eruption took place.

Many locations, however, did not notice any surges until the next morning, when the surges probably reached their maximum at most places. Several places reported continuance of oscillations for more than 24 hours. The places that were most affected by surges were mainly the eastern seaboard from Mangonui in Northland to Port Chalmers in the South Island.

The island is about 3 miles wide and 5. 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 , 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. 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. At p. It is thought that debris from the earlier eruptive activity must have plugged the neck of the cone, allowing pressure to build in the magma chamber. On the morning of the 27th, four tremendous explosions, heard as far away as Perth, Australia, some 2, miles 4, km distant, plunged both Perboewatan and Danan into the caldera below the sea.

The initial explosion ruptured the magma chamber and allowed seawater to contact the hot lava. Though the risk of Anak Krakatoa is scary enough, it's probably never going to explode in an event on the scale of the eruption in A new magma reservoir would have to regenerate there over who knows how many millennia before we could expect a repeat of the event. These are, fortunately, fairly rare events and require fairly unusual conditions to occur.

Though a lot of things have changed in the nearly century-and-a-half since the Krakatoa eruption, there's no guarantee that our modern, technologically advanced civilization necessarily would be any better prepared for a similar catastrophe.

In a worst-case scenario, "a large eruption that was explosive and rich in sulfur dioxide could bring about a sudden climate change — similar to the 'Little Ice Age' — that could have catastrophic impacts on the planet's ability to feed its population," Thomas says.

It resulted in a famine in Iceland that killed, I believe, about 25 percent of their human population, and a large fraction of their livestock due to the sulfur dioxide and fluoride that was produced. Some argue that one of the after effects of the eruption was significant cooling and increased summer rainfall that produced widespread wheat crop failure in Europe which triggered the French Revolution. The global population today is about 10 times what it was in I'll let you do the math.

While it might be possible to better protect the population in the vicinity of a volcano, it would be far tougher to deal with the potential for global impacts. Fortunately, Thomas says, "these events are very rare and infrequent. Krakatoa was only the second biggest eruption in the s in Indonesia.

The eruption of Mount Tambora was so ferocious that it almost instantly killed 10, people on the island of Sumbawa and ultimately took about 90, lives. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close.