Modern man will no longer associate fire-breathing mountains with evil spirits, but to this day, the grandeur of volcanic phenomena fascinates and attracts people's attention. Scientists with a high degree of certainty divide volcanoes into extinct and active: how many times a volcano that was considered extinct suddenly began to act. Moreover, after its awakening, the volcano begins to show power, which is proportional to the duration of the previous stage of dormancy.
Extinct volcanoes were the source of the most massive disasters. An example is Vesuvius, considered extinct before the eruption that caused the death of Pompeii, or the Lymington volcano in New Guinea, which killed 5,000 people in an eruption in 1951. In 1956, the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century occurred - the explosion of the Bezymyanny volcano in Kamchatka. Only the absence of settlements nearby did not lead to mass casualties.
On the Sunda Islands, which are known for their high seismicity, such disasters occur very often. These islands have the highest population density, which causes not only huge material, but also human losses. The greatest "glory" on the Sunda Islands, which are located in the warm seas of the Pacific Ocean, is the volcano Krakatoa after the eruption that became known to the whole world in 1883. Before that, Krakatoa (800 meters high, 9 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide) had not been active for 200 years, and it was considered extinct. The Krakatoa Islands were deserted, and only from time to time fishermen from the island of Sumatra called there. That year, on May 20, the crew of the German warship Elizabeth saw a mushroom-shaped cloud emerging from the crater; it was later found to be 11,000 meters high. Despite the fact that Krakatoa was still far away, ash fell on the deck of the ship.
The volcanic eruption was observed from other ships, as well as from the west coast of Java. All over the space tremors were felt and explosions were heard, ash was in the air. In mid-June, the process resumed with terrible force. In August, the volcano instead of one crater appeared as many as three, and they all emitted ash and volcanic gases. Lightning flashed in black clouds over Krakatoa. A meter thick layer of ash lay on the decks of ships passing through the strait, and St. Elmo's lights flashed on the masts and rigging, because the air was saturated with electricity.
The morning of August 26 was clear. At one o'clock in the afternoon, a growing rumble was heard. At night, he became so strong that in Batavia (now the capital of Indonesia - the city of Jakarta) it was impossible to sleep. A terrible disaster struck on 27 August. At about two o'clock in the afternoon from the ship "Medea", which was sailing along the Sunda Strait, they noticed huge columns of ash. The sea was agitated. Waves flooded small ships, throwing them onto land; water rushed to the shores of Sumatra and Java, destroying several villages.
At this time, a series of incredible volcanic explosions were heard. Huge boulders fell from the vents. The ash clouds rose to great heights and completely covered the sun. A storm broke out at sea; waves reached 30 meters in height. Towns, villages, forests, a railway embankment that ran along the coast in Java - everything was wiped off the face of the earth by a terrible flood. Many cities were destroyed, the entire population of the islands of Sebesi and Serami was buried under a layer of ash.
The aftermath of a volcanic eruption is difficult to describe. The shores of the two giant islands of Sumatra and Java have been transformed beyond recognition. Gray mud and products of eruptions, trees uprooted, the remains of buildings, the corpses of people and animals covered the ground. According to official figures, the death toll was about 40,000. On the site of the island of Krakatoa, the sea overflowed, and only the cone of the volcano protruded on its surface, which split in half - one half of it collapsed into the sea, and the other opened a striking picture of a terrible laboratory of underground forces.
In Java, 150 km from the volcano, the tremors were so strong that windows and doors in houses were torn off their hinges, and plaster fell off the walls. The crash was heard in Manila, at a distance of 2,000 km from the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, in Central Australia and on the island of Madagascar. The tsunami, which caused the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, went around the entire Earth.
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The eruption of the Krakatoa volcano caused more than one amazing phenomenon. Soon after the catastrophe, circles appeared around the Sun - a halo, and it itself acquired an unusual green color, and at times a blue tint. At first, this was noticeable only in the vicinity of Krakatoa, and then at a considerable distance from it. This peculiar color of the sun was explained by the accumulation of the smallest particles of volcanic ash in the upper atmosphere. At the end of November, a strange heavenly glow was noted in Europe, which lasted for three years. At sunset, the rays of the Sun created a purple-diamond reflection in the sky.
The products of the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano consisted mostly of pumice and fine ash. Presumably, their volume reached 18 cubic kilometers. To the north of Krakatoa, near the island of Sebesi, the depth of the sea before the eruption was 36 m. After the catastrophe, all this space was covered with shoals and became unnavigable.
The eruption of the Krakatoa volcano was the most powerful ever recorded by science. The energy of the explosion was equivalent to the power of four hundred hydrogen bombs!
Over time, the shores of the Sunda Islands, which were devastated after the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, healed the wounds caused by the disaster. The jungle and mangrove forests rustled again, birds and animals returned. People also began to return to their former lands. On the Javanese peninsula of Ujungkulon, which juts south into the Sunda Strait, just 83 miles from the ruins of Krakatoa, a national park has been created that amazes with the richness of its fauna and flora.
There are no settlements, no rice fields, no coffee and banana plantations, but the clouded leopard and gibbon, bear marten and red wolf, Javanese boar and wild forest bull are found. Only here live the last 40 or 50 Javanese one-horned rhinos on the planet. The fact that the peninsula was depopulated as a result of the eruption gave them a chance to survive. In the rest of Java, these rarest animals have long been exterminated.
But the destroyed volcano did not stop its sinister activity. Half a century later, it began to show activity again, and in 1952 a cone of a young volcanic structure appeared from the sea waters, which gradually began to rise above the strait, increasing its height and area due to small but frequent eruptions. Now the island-volcano reaches a height of 250 meters and a kilometer in length and continues to grow. He was given the name Anak-Krakatau (Child of Krakatau). The column of smoke above it is clearly visible from ships that pass the Sunda Strait.
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