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The eruptions were so loud "that they were heard over 1,900 miles away in Perth in Western Australia, and over 4,500 miles away in Sri Lanka." The eruption spewed out 5 cubic miles of pumice, ash and rock, generated a 130-ft-high tsunami, destroyed 165 villages and towns, seriously damaged another 132 and killed 36,417 people outright. If Krakatoa were to erupt in such a manner again, the article warns, the impact would be far more devastating than that experienced in the 19th century because the region where Krakatoa is situated - between the islands of Java and Sumatra - is now more densely populated. "It is not inconceivable that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed if there were another massive eruption." Plus, there's my concern that such an eruption could drive us into an ice age. The huge amounts of sulphur dioxide pumped into the atmosphere during the 1883 eruption resulted in clouds that reflected a greater amount of incoming light from the sun, driving average global temperatures down by as much as 1.2 Celcius. Such a small drop in temperature may not sound very impressive, but with our low sunspot count and with the UK experiencing its coldest winter in perhaps a thousand years, it wouldn't take all that much to drive us over the edge.
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