How Krakatoa made the biggest bang

When the Krakatoa volcano erupted in 1883, it unleashed one of the most violent explosions mankind had ever seen. Ahead of a lavish new BBC drama, Sanjida O'Connell examines how the impact was felt around the world

Published: 03 May 2006

It was 6am on August 26 in 1883, when the volcano on Krakatoa, a small island in Indonesia, catastrophically erupted. This earth-shattering event became the greatest natural disaster of the 19th century: the sky was bathed in an unearthly red glow and the fallout was felt around the world.

The force of the eruption created the loudest noise ever recorded: it was heard 4,653km away on Rodriguez Island in the Indian Ocean and some 4,800km away in Alice Springs; shock waves travelled around the world seven times; and the force of the blast was some 10,000 times greater than that of the hydrogen bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The volcano left 36,000 people dead and the survivors battled to cope with tsunamis, further eruptions and superheated ash clouds.

Article Length: 1279 words (approx.)