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In the summer of 1883, a small uninhabited island between Sumatra and Java, in what is now Indonesia, changed the world. Its name was Krakatoa. For months, the volcano had been showing signs of activity, with clouds of ash and rumbling that shook the nearby coasts. Few people imagined how violent its end would be.
On August 26 and 27, four gigantic explosions destroyed most of the island. The third and loudest, on the morning of the 27th, is considered the loudest sound in recorded history. It was heard more than four thousand kilometers away, on Rodrigues Island, near Mauritius, where people thought they were hearing distant cannon fire. Barometers around the world recorded the pressure wave, which traveled around the Earth several times.
The greatest tragedy, however, came from the sea. The explosions and the collapse of the volcano produced enormous tsunamis, some of them reaching heights of around forty meters. They swept over the coasts of Java and Sumatra, and hundreds of coastal towns and villages were destroyed. More than 36,000 people died, and most of them were killed not by the volcano itself, but by the waves.
The effects were felt far beyond Indonesia. So much ash and gas had been thrown high into the atmosphere that sunlight was partly blocked, and global temperatures fell by more than one degree Celsius in the following year. For months, sunsets all around the world were unusually red and purple, which some observers described as beautiful and others as alarming. Painters and poets recorded the strange light in their work.
Krakatoa also changed science. It was one of the first major disasters to be reported around the world in a matter of hours, thanks to the telegraph, and scientists from many countries cooperated to study its consequences. It is often regarded as a turning point in how the world learned about natural disasters and how they could be studied.
Today, a new island has appeared where the old volcano once stood. It is called Anak Krakatau, which means "Child of Krakatoa," and it is still active. It is a reminder that the forces that shaped that terrible day have not disappeared, only paused.
