The Loudest BOOM in the History of Mankind

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133 years ago on the Earth was an explosion, the likes of which people have not heard before, and which has not been surpassed, even when testing the hydrogen bomb. In 1883, August 27, between the Islands of Sumatra and Jawa (the archipelago of Indonesia) Krakatoa volcano thundered to the whole world. The rumbling of the volcano was the loudest sound in the history of modern mankind.

• 64 kilometers from the volcano, the sound of the explosion ripped through the eardrums of sailors.
• In Jakarta, about 160 km from the epicenter of the eruption, the shock wave blew down the doors and smashed all the windows in buildings
• Manila (2000 km from the epicenter), the locals thought that war had come. There was the incessant drone, like the firing of artillery near the town.
• Residents of Australia and New Guinea, a distance of 3200 km, described roar like the firing of heavy guns.
• On the island of Mauritius, 4,500 km, was heard the sound coming from the East like a distant roar of cannons. In total the sound of the eruption was heard by people in 50 different geographical locations.

area of audibility of the explosion (paint)

For a better understanding of the volume of the explosion: if this volcano exploded in Los Angeles, you would hear the explosion in Washington.

The eruption was so powerful, that it literally tore the island, on which was volcano. A column of smoke rose to the height of 27 km, it pulled out from the crater at a speed of 800 m/sec (it is faster than the maximum speed of a fighter jet F22-Raptor).

Volcano Eruption in Papua New Guinea you can see the pressure wave from the explosion

More than 20 cubic kilometers of debris and ash shot up into the atmosphere (this is in 142 times more than in the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010).

The shock wave formed a tsunami height of 30-35 meters (the height of the tsunami in Thailand in 2004 was 15 meters), which washed away about 165 coastal villages and killed 40,000 people (today in these areas live dozens of millions of people). The increase of the tidal waves was visually noticeable on the shores of India.

Part of the volcano were scattered at a distance of 500 km (due to a powerful explosion carried them to a height of 55 kilometers in the stratosphere), it was like a meteor shower.

The power of the explosion of 10,000 times the power of the explosion during the bombing of Hiroshima.

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Volcanic ash in the atmosphere had influenced on the climate, the temperature dropped by 1.2 degrees for the whole next year around the world. Ash also changed the color of sunsets for the next three years, they have become bright red.

area of the darkness (paint)

The first 56 hours within a radius of 360 kilometers the ash covered the sky completely, the darkness came. Thickness of volcanic pumice on the sea surface was up to 3 meters, shipping stopped. Later, on the other side of the Pacific, sun has acquired a green color.

The power of sound

The approximate magnitude of sound in the radius of 200 km from the explosion reached 176 decibel. The pain threshold for humans is 140 db. The gigantic sound horn in ESA can produce a sound output of 154 dB (it's like you put your ear to a running jet engine), this is enough to permanently deprive a person of a hearing. This horn is used for testing missiles, to avoid the destruction caused by sound at startup. Value 200 db destroys the internal organs.

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According to the testimony of barometers from around the world, the momentum from the explosion circled the Earth 3-4 times (18 hours after the explosion, the momentum came to new York, Washington and Toronto. It was repeated a few days). This phenomenon was called "The Great Air Wave".

After the explosion, at the place of Krakatoa remained the volcano Anak-Krakatoa "the child of Krakatoa" and it is active.

sources: The incredible eruption, 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, Eyjafjallaj, The disaster of the world,European Space Agency, WiKi Hearing, WiKi Sound and others in the text