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Historic Disasters That Were Way Worse Than People Think

Khalid Elhassan April 6, 2020 33 min

Yellow River - 1887 Yellow River flood — 1887 Yellow River Flood. Hakai Magazine

30. Krakatoa Was Loud

May 27th, 1883: Clouds pouring from the volcano on Krakatoa in south western Indonesia during the early stages of the eruption which eventually destroyed most of the island. Royal Society Report on Krakatoa Eruption, Hulton Archive

By early evening, August 26^th, 1883, Krakatoa’s seismic activity was triggering mini tsunamis that struck the Sumatran and Javan coasts 25 miles away. The climax began early the following morning, with two big eruptions at 5:30 and 6:44 AM on August 27th, that gave rise to more tsunamis.

Then at 10:02 AM, Krakatoa erupted with a huge bang. It was the loudest sound ever heard until then in recorded history: a cataclysmic explosion of about 180 decibels. That was equivalent to 15,000 Hiroshima bombs, and it put the preceding eruptions to shame. It was heard almost 2000 miles away in Perth, Australia, 3000 miles away on the island of Rodrigues, near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, and produced a tsunami about 100 feet high in places.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.