“A monstrous rumbling sound was
heard from Mount Batuwara which was followed by dark clouds, lightning
and endless thunders. Soon after, great storm and devastating rain
plunged the entire planet into total darkness. A massive flood came from
Mount Batuwara flowing east towards Mount Kamula…….As the waters
drowned the area, Java became divided creating the island of Sumatra”
Berend George Escher and several other
geologists believe that the event mentioned in the text was the Ancient
Mount Krakatau, which at the time was called Mount Batuwara. This
Ancient Mount Krakatau was believed to have a height of 2000m above sea
level with a diameter of approximately 11Km.
Ancient Mount Krakatau
The colossal eruption devastated three
quarters of the Ancient Mountain and left a huge caldera at the Sunda
Strait. The edges of the caldera sprung out of the sea and formed the
small islands of Rakata, Sertung and Panjang. The eruption was said by
many to have caused the pitch black century, which caused a drastic
lowering of temperature and caused the Sampar Bubonic disease
that drastically cut populations. Some even argue that the cataclysm
brought an end to the ancient Persian Empire and Nazca civilization in
South America. The eruption of the Ancient Krakatau was estimated to
have lasted 10 days with the speed of volcanic matters reaching up to 1
million tons per seconds. The eruption was also believed to have formed
atmospheric layers as thick as 20-150 meters and cooling global
temperature by 5-10 degrees for 10-20 years.
David Keys, Ken Wohletz, and others
postulate that the violent volcanic eruption, possibly of Krakatoa, may
have been responsible for the global climate changes that occurred in
535AD, instead of 416AD.
Rakata, which was one of the three
remaining islands of the Ancient Mount Krakatau grew over the years as a
result of the volcanic activity inside the earth and formed Mount
Rakata (or some called it Krakatau). Subsequently, two other volcanoes
emerged from the Caldera namely Mount Danan and Mount Perboewatan. The
three volcanos eventually merged into what became Mount Krakatau.
The 1883 Krakatau Cataclysm
Early in the morning of May 20, 1883,
the captain of the German warship Elizabeth reported seeing an
11-km-high cloud of ash and dust rising above the uninhabited island of
Krakatau. Over the ensuing two months, crews on commercial vessels and
sightseers on charted ships would experience similar spectacles, all of
which were associated with explosive noises and churning clouds of black
to incandescent ash and pumice. From a distance, the largest of these
natural fanfares impressed the local inhabitants on the coastal plains
of Java and Sumatra, creating a near-festive environment. Little did
they realize that these awe-inspiring displays were only a prelude to
one of the largest eruptions recoded vividly in history.
On Sunday, August 26, at 12:53 p.m,
Krakatau delivered the opening salvo to a climactic eruption that would
last throughout the evening of August 27. The initial blast generated an
ear-shattering fusillade accompanied by black churning cloud of
volcanic debris that rose quickly to 25 km above the island. Over the
next several hours, it would widen dramatically to the northeast, rising
to a height of at least 36 km.
On the following day, Monday, August 27,
the frightening display of volcanic power would culminate in a series
of at least four stupendous eruptions that began at 5:30 a.m., climaxing
in a colossal blast that literally blew Krakatau apart. The noise was
heard over 4600 km away, throughout the Indian Ocean, from Rodriguez
Island and Sri Lanka in the west, to Australia in the east. Two-thirds
of the island collapsed beneath the sea into the underlying, partially
vacated magma chamber. About 23 square kilometers of the island,
including all of Perboewatan and Danan, subsided into a caldera about 6
km across. At an original height of 450 m, Danan had collapsed to depth
of 250 m below sea level. The eruption is still recorded up to this day
as the loudest sound ever heard in the world in modern history.
The combined effects of pyroclastic
flows, volcanic ashes, and tsunamis had disastrous results in the
region. The official death toll recorded by the Dutch authorities was
36,417 casualties, although some sources put the estimate at more than
120,000. There are numerous documented reports of groups of human
skeletons floating across the Indian Ocean on rafts of volcanic pumice
and washing up on the east coast of Africa, up to a year after the
eruption.
Aftermath
The eruption again destroyed the
mountain and left remnants in the small islands of Rakata, Sertung, and
Panjang. In 1927, in the center of the sea caldera rose a new mountain
that was later dubbed as Anak Krakatau or the child of
Krakatau. The newly”born” mountain continues to grow at an average rate
of five inches (13 cm) per week equates to an average growth of 6.8
metres per year. The island is still active, with its most recent
eruptive episode having begun in 1994.
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