Krakatau is a volcano between Java and Sumatra, the most famous in the Malay archipelago (Indonesia). Volcanologists have become seriously interested in this typically stratiform, fire-breathing mountain, and they are driven not only by scientific interest, but also by fears for the lives of many thousands of people. It is believed that his eruption in 1883 was the most powerful in the entire history of the written history of mankind. But let's start in order. Scientists have discovered that once Java and Sumatra were one island, and there was no Sunda Strait . In 535 A.D. a gigantic volcano explosion occurred, leading to the separation of islands and global climate change on a planetary scale.
Although the catastrophe was not described in the annals, the tree rings studied by dendrochronologists allow us to judge that he “came around” in different parts of the Earth. The volcano Krakatau did not even think of falling asleep after that, and his temper always manifested itself in powerful emissions of ash and explosions. It was a fairly tall and vast island (9 by 5 km), towering more than a thousand meters above sea level. Together with other small islands, it amounted to the remains of the crater of a prehistoric volcano, the height of which, according to volcanologists, could be two thousand meters. Historical chronicles mention the terrible 1680 year, but what happened in August 1883 exceeded all imaginable ideas of mankind about the destructive the power of Earth's magma.
The eruption of the volcano Krakatau began in May. At first, these were regular explosions that did no harm to anyone. However, with these claps the mountain plucked out a large mass of rock and voids formed in the bowels. At dawn on August 27 thunderous thunder roared. 150 km away in Batavia (present-day Jakarta), a blast wave demolished the roofs and tore the doors off the hinges, and noise was heard in Madagascar (4 thousand km from the epicenter). And the next day, most of the island collapsed. The sea poured into the resulting voids. A hydromagmatic explosion occurred from the contact of magma and liquid, and water, having met with a column of ashes rising into the air, led to the formation of a pyroclastic stream 900 meters high. He flew at the speed of a courier train to Sumatra, bringing death to two thousand people.
But that was not all. Rock fragments fell to the ground 500 km from the epicenter, and volcanic ash settled in the very east of the Indian Ocean. A layer of dust rose even to sparse layers of the mesosphere to a height of 70 km. Scientists estimate that the force of the explosion was 10,000 times higher than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The shock wave several times circled the globe. The giant, up to 30 m, tsunami washed away about 300 cities and villages, 36 thousand people died. This tsunami, in a rather weakened form, was observed even on the Atlantic coast of France! The volcano Krakatau itself collapsed and went under water.
Is it possible to say that this is all over? In 1927, an underwater eruption took place, and a small peak, only 9 meters high, appeared above the surface of the sea. The baby was named the volcano Krakatau-Anak (Child of Krakatau). However, this baby did not grow by leaps and bounds. He was destroyed by the waves of the sea, but he won himself more and more living space. In 1930, a terrestrial eruption occurred, and lava flows strengthened the walls of the new island, making them resistant to ocean erosion. In 1933, it reached a height of 67 m, and in 1950 - 138 m. Then, for a short time, the sea managed to gain the upper hand and blur the island.
But the volcano Krakatau did not give up: in 1960, the new island again rose above the surface of the water by 30 m. In 1968, its height was already 160 m. Now it is growing at a speed of 13 centimeters per week. Its area is still far from the previous one, but the volcano is already approaching it - 813 m above sea level. Since 1994, Anak-Krakatau has also become moody. Small eruptions occur almost every week. The most significant of them began in 2008 and ended in 2009. Only volcanologists land on the island. The Indonesian government has forbidden residents to settle closer than three kilometers from a dangerous mountain.