Quotes About Krakatoa

The eruption of Krakatoa was, indeed, the first true catastrophe in the world to take place after the establishment of a worldwide network of telegraph cables—a network that allowed news of disaster to be flashed around the planet in double-quick time.

The death throes of Krakatoa lasted for exactly twenty hours and fifty-six minutes, culminating in the gigantic explosion that all observers now agree happened at 10:02 A.M. on Monday, August 27, 1883.

In the aftermath of Krakatoa's eruption, 165 villages were devastated, 36,417 people died, and uncountable thousands were injured—and almost all of them, villages and inhabitants, were victims not of the eruption directly but of the immense sea-waves* that were propelled outward from the volcano by that last night of detonations.