Krakatoa volcano: deceased and resurrected

Krakatau is a volcano between Java and Sumatra, the most famous in the Malay Archipelago (Indonesia). This typically stratospheric, fire-breathing mountain is seriously interested in volcanologists, and they are motivated 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 history of the written history of mankind. But let's start in order. Scientists discovered that once Java and Sumatra were one island, and the Sunda Strait was not at all. In 535 AD. There was a giant volcano explosion that led to the separation of islands and global climatic changes of a planetary scale.

Although the catastrophe was not described in the annals, the annual rings of trees studied by dendrochronologists make it possible to judge that it "auknulis" in various parts of the Earth. The Krakatoa volcano did not think to fall asleep after that, and his temper was always manifested in powerful outbursts of ashes and explosions. It was a fairly high and extensive island (9 by 5 km), towering more than a thousand meters above sea level. Along with other small islets, it was the remains of a crater of a prehistoric volcano, whose height, according to volcanologists, could be two thousand meters. Historical chronicles mention the terrible year 1680, but what happened in August 1883 exceeded all conceivable representations of humanity about the destructive The magma of the earth.

The eruption of the volcano Krakatoa began in May. At first, these were regular explosions, which did not cause anyone harm. However, with these claps, the mountain has lost a large mass of rock from itself and voids have formed in the interior. At dawn on August 27 thunder thundered. At 150 km in Batavia (present Jakarta), a blast wave blew up the roofs and tore off the doors from the hinges, and the noise was heard in Madagascar (4,000 km from the epicenter). And the next day most of the island collapsed. The sea poured into the emptiness. From the contact of magma and liquid, a hydromagmatic explosion occurred, and water, encountered with a column of ash rising into the air, led to the formation of a pyroclastic flow 900 meters high. He flew to Sumatra at the speed of a courier train, bringing death to two thousand people.

But that was not all. Fragments of rocks fell to the ground 500 km from the epicenter, and volcanic ash settled in the east of the Indian Ocean. The layer of dust rose even to the rarefied layers of the mesosphere to a height of 70 km. Scientists have calculated that the force of the explosion was 10,000 times higher than the impact of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. A shock wave several times flew around the globe. Giant, up to 30 m, tsunami washed away about 300 cities and villages, killing 36 thousand people. This tsunami, in a rather weakened form, was observed even at the Atlantic coast of France! The very same Krakatoa volcano collapsed and went under water.

Can you say that this is all over? In 1927, an underwater eruption took place, and above the surface of the sea appeared a small, altitude of only 9 meters, the summit. The baby was named the volcano Krakatau-Anak (Child Krakatau). However, this kid grew up by leaps and bounds. It was destroyed by the waves of the sea, but it won more and more living space. In 1930 there was already a land eruption, and the lava flows strengthened the walls of the new island, making them resistant to ocean erosion. In 1933, he reached a height of 67 m, and in 1950 - 138 m. Then the sea for a short time managed to get the upper hand and blur the islet.

But the volcano Krakatoa did not give up: in 1960 the new island rose again above the water surface by 30 m. In 1968 its height was already 160 m. Now it grows 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 whimsical. 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 banned residents from settling closer than three kilometers from a dangerous mountain.