The Loudest Sound Ever Recorded - the Krakatoa Eruption of 1883

[lpetrich]

The Loudest Sound Ever Recorded. It was heard nearly 3,000 miles away… | by Grant Piper | Exploring History | Medium
noting
Krakatoa Eruption Of 1883: The Loudest Sound In History - allthatsinteresting.com

From a-t-i-i.com

On the morning of Aug. 26, 1883, the residents of the island of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait of Indonesia, then-Dutch East Indie, arose like it was any other day. They went about their business as smoke trailed from the three volcanic cones that dotted the island. The smoke was new, but not unusual, as the island was made up of three active volcanoes. While it was a cause for pause, for many residents, it was no cause for alarm.

But it should have been. By the next evening, the smoke would turn into an eruption that would shatter the island and leave behind only 30 percent of the land as it turned the rest of it to ash. Over 36,000 deaths would be reported from the blast and the Krakatoa tsunamis that followed.

Its impact would even be felt in New York City and is still considered to be the cause of the loudest sound ever recorded in human history.

It is estimated at 310 decibels. The nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are at 250 dB, the first stage of the Saturn V rocket is at 204 dB, and the medium.com article links to this list:

• 140 - Threshold of Pain
• 130 - Jet Taking Off (200 ft. away)
• 120 - Operating Heavy Equipment
• 110 - Night Club (w/ music)
• 100 - Construction Site
• 90 - Boiler Room
• 80 - Freight Train (100 ft. away)
• 70 - Classroom Chatter
• 60 - Conversation (3 ft. away)
• 50 - Urban Residence
• 40 - Soft Whisper (5 ft. away)
• 30 - North Rim of Grand Canyon
• 20 - Silent Study Room
• 10
• 0 - Threshold of Hearing (1000 Hz)

From medium.com

The explosion was loud enough that this level of noise was recorded many miles away from the site of the blast. A sound of 174 decibels was recorded by barometers 100 miles from Krakatoa. That meant anyone within an 100 mile radius of Krakatoa had a chance of being literally deafened by this sound.

Miles away farther still, the sound was recorded at the same level as an uncovered shotgun blast near your head.

And all the way in Australia, some 2,800 miles distant, an ocean away, it was reported as far off rifle or cannon fire.

Like the distance between New York City and Los Angeles.

From a-t-i-i.com

The energy released from the Krakatoa eruption has been estimated to be equal to about 200 megatons of TNT. The Tsar Bomba, the most powerful thermonuclear device ever detonated, only released the equivalent of about 57.

 List of large volcanic eruptions has more such big eruptions, including bigger ones like Mt. Tambora in 1815, and Toba some 74,000 years ago. Mt. St. Helens in 1980 also made the list, though it wasn't as big.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Used as a plot premise for what was just about my favorite book as a ten-year-old: The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene Du Bois.