Words of Wisdom from SharLeigh
NATURE’S FURY UNLEASHED
In August of 1883, the small volcanic island of Krakatoa, located in the straits between Java and Sumatra, blew itself into pieces. The volcanic activity was first noticed in May of 1883 by passing ships, but on August 27, 1883 a series of four cataclysmic explosions caused approximately nine square miles (two-thirds) of Krakatoa to collapse beneath the sea. When Krakatoa exploded it was equal to the energy of 200 megatons of TNT – about 13,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The eruption ejected about five cubic miles of rock, ash and pumice into the sky and generated the loudest noise (which was clearly heard almost 3,000 miles away) ever recorded. Shock waves from the explosion, measured by barograph, traveled around the earth seven times. The eruption also created a huge 131-foot tsunami that destroyed hundreds of coastal villages along Java and Sumatra and killed an estimated 36,000 people. After the top of Krakatoa exploded and the bottom collapsed into the sea, the volcano seemed to have disappeared forever, but in 1927 a posthumous child, Anak Krakatau (Indonesian for “Child of Krakatoa”), began to rise from the depths of the water at the very same spot. Created by smaller, ongoing eruptions occurring over the years, Anak Krakatau has been gradually growing ever since (averaging about five inches a week since the 1950s). By 1973 it measured 580 feet tall; it’s now up to 900 feet. Krakatoa was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, and it will probably, at some point, erupt again. It is amazing what nature can throw at man, yet, through all the fury, man survives to tell the tale.