ED DANAHUE

Photograph during the eruption in 1883.

An 1888 lithograph of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait occurred
from 20 May until 21 October 1883, peaking in the late
morning hours of 27 August when over 70% of the island
of Krakatoa and its surrounding archipelago were destroyed
as it collapsed into a caldera.

The eruption was one of the deadliest and most destructive
volcanic events in recorded history.

At 8:32 a.m. PDT on May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens, a
volcanic peak in southwestern Washington, suffered
a massive eruption, killing 57 people and devastating
some 210 square miles of wilderness.

   
A  lithograph of 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.

One of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history occurred on Krakatoa (also called Krakatau), a small, uninhabited volcanic island east of Sumatra and west of Java, on August 27,
1883. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic
miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis
and killed 36,000 people.

Illustration of volcanic island of Krakatoa before it blew. 

CAMILLE BOHANNON

On August 24, 79 AD after centuries of dormancy, Mount Vesuvius
erupted in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities
of  Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing thousands. The cities,
buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, were
never rebuilt and largely forgotten in the course of history.

In the 18th century, Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered and
excavated, providing an  unprecedented archaeological record of
the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in
in sudden death.