Page 15 - 9788179931820
P. 15
WORLD’S WORST 14-15
Far and wide
The Tambora eruption was so great that it created unusual climate events around the
world. Average global temperatures fell, and in 1816, American and European countries
suffered extreme weather conditions. The year 1816 came to be known as ‘the year
without a summer’. Crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere,
resulting in the worst famine of the nineteenth century.
Krakatoa has erupted repeatedly, with
disastrous consequences throughout
recorded history.
Mount Tambora is an
active stratovolcano.
It is rated 7 out of
10 on the Volcanic
Explosivity Index.
Other big eruptions
Indonesia is also home to Krakatoa, which erupted on August 27, 1883, destroying
two-thirds of the island. The eruption generated the loudest sound historically
reported—the explosion was heard as far away as Perth, Australia. It also led to
thirty-metre-high tsunamis, which hit the neighbouring islands of Sumatra and Java,
killing about thirty-four thousand people.
On May 8, 1902, Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea
erupted violently. The eruption was not in the form of magma but in the form of a
high-speed pyroclastic flow that swept down a steep valley to the port, killing almost
all of its twenty-nine thousand inhabitants.
Far and wide
The Tambora eruption was so great that it created unusual climate events around the
world. Average global temperatures fell, and in 1816, American and European countries
suffered extreme weather conditions. The year 1816 came to be known as ‘the year
without a summer’. Crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere,
resulting in the worst famine of the nineteenth century.
Krakatoa has erupted repeatedly, with
disastrous consequences throughout
recorded history.
Mount Tambora is an
active stratovolcano.
It is rated 7 out of
10 on the Volcanic
Explosivity Index.
Other big eruptions
Indonesia is also home to Krakatoa, which erupted on August 27, 1883, destroying
two-thirds of the island. The eruption generated the loudest sound historically
reported—the explosion was heard as far away as Perth, Australia. It also led to
thirty-metre-high tsunamis, which hit the neighbouring islands of Sumatra and Java,
killing about thirty-four thousand people.
On May 8, 1902, Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea
erupted violently. The eruption was not in the form of magma but in the form of a
high-speed pyroclastic flow that swept down a steep valley to the port, killing almost
all of its twenty-nine thousand inhabitants.
