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Krakatoa eruption






Saw about this today. Another tragedy to occur there during the Christmas period.
The last major catastrophe obviously being Boxing Day 2004.
Just watched the band that got took out by the tsunami.
I was surprised to hear the name Krakatoa again. I know this is the 'child'.
The original Krakatoa volcano already had a very violent history.
It produced one of the most explosive eruptions and still to date was the loudest sound known on the planet.
So loud that near the explosion it wouldn't of been sound at all.

Interesting article: http://nautil.us/blog/the-sound-so-loud-that-it-circled-the-earth-four-times
 
Yeah, I saw this too. That volcano seems to remain active and has been during the entire history and likely longer than that. They say that Mt. Rainier is over due to erupt again, but it hasn't done so in a few thousand years, so I don't worry about it. If it ever does again, it would wipe out Seattle and Tacoma and much of the area around central and the the south Puget sound area. The major concern is for the mud slides that would accompany any eruption on Rainier.
 
CurtisOliver said:
I was surprised to hear the name Krakatoa again. I know this is the 'child'.
The original Krakatoa volcano already had a very violent history.
Click to expand...

The island you see here is 'anak krakatoa', which translates to 'the child of krakatoa' - essentially it's an island that formed after the original much larger krakatoa volcano exploded in 1883, one of the biggest volcanic events in recorded history.

This whole region is pretty active seismically, and i've experienced indonesian quakes myself. Usually they aren't that bad and just ratte things around, but they are pretty common. Recently there have been several quakes that harmed people, not only this one, but also around lombok island a few months ago causing moderate destruction, injury and some deaths.

Sadly it's inevitable in this region which is love to stay in very much. The only thing that can be done is damage and harm mitigation with stronger building constructions as well as evacuation routes in case of tsunami's. And despite the death toll in this event, measures have been taken to reduce harm: in many places you'll now see signs pointing to the best evacuation route to higher ground in case of a tsunami, as well as improved early warning systems. Obviously this is far from perfect so far, but i think the consequences would have been far worse without those in place.
 
That 1883 eruption also caused a climate change for over a year too. I remember reading about it years ago and was also the cause of some unusual sunsets as it pushed a great deal of ash and gasses into the atmosphere where they remained for well over a year. I have also seen the representations of the change to the topography around the volcano. It left a crater in the sea bed where the original volcano stood.
 
I'm sure I saw a news article about a potential eruption of Krakatoa just a week or two ago.
 
Having a tsunami early warning system isn't really the problem, they just did not think it was required to install it at this location as something like this has not happened before in recent history. If it had been in place it would have alerted since most such systems simply work with buoys in the ocean that detect a sudden increase in sea level.

Anak Krakatoa is fairly active at all times, but this came as a surprise result. It wasn't a full on explosive eruption but more of a ground move/slide effect (still unclear about the details on that).

One thing to understand is that things like earthquakes and volcanoes belching up dust and ash are pretty common around indonesia, so as such often little cause for concern. I've experienced a few just as a visitor, i reckon if you live there permanently you'd think little off it if the ground shakes around a bit.

Something like the 1883 eruption would still be a very fatal event, but there are quakes in the country that cause moderate to severe damage that do not get reported on internationally much. A few months ago we had the quake near Lombok island causing a lot of damage. No tsunami to speak of, but it did damage a lot of buildings and took numerous casualties as well.
 
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