#sunda strait

[pixoplanet]

It's August 27th, 🇮🇩 Krakatoa Day. On this day in 1883, the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurred on the small, uninhabited island of Krakatoa (also called Krakatau), located west of Sumatra in Indonesia. In May, 1883, Krakatoa began stirring for the first time in over 200 years and spit out a seven-mile-high cloud of ash and dust. The local inhabitants greeted this and subsequent volcanic displays over the next two months with festive excitement.

In late August, however, 🌋 their excitement turned to horror as Krakatoa literally blew itself apart. This set off a chain reaction of natural disasters that was felt around the globe for years to come. Enormous blasts sent the northern two-thirds of the island plunging into the Sunda Strait, between the Java Sea and Indian Ocean. The explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air. Fine dust drifted around the planet which created spectacular red sunsets (which is theorized to have inspired Edvard Much's painting "The Scream"), but also formed an atmospheric veil that lowered temperatures worldwide by several degrees.

The exploding mountain generated a series of pyroclastic flows and tsunamis. Over 4,500 people were scorched to death along the coastlines as the pyroclastic flows rolled out as far as 40 miles away. At least 31,000 of the estimated 36,000 deaths resulting from the eruption were caused by tsunamis. The greatest of these waves measured 120 feet high, and washed completely over nearby islands, stripping away vegetation and carrying people out to sea. Krakatoa has been relatively quiet since, but is still considered active. A new volcano, Anak Krakatoa is now emerging from the ruins. Indonesia also has another 130 active volcanoes, more than any other country in the world. ☮️ Peace… Jamiese of Pixoplanet

[bcbdrums]

Not the best art in the world by ANY means, but here’s something I drew in 2012 back when my Krakatoa obsession began.

Link to DeviantART posting: https://www.deviantart.com/bcbdrums/art/Krakatoa-1883-303848604

[oledavyjones]

In the Sunda Strait the 21st of January 1928. A sailor of a passing ship photographs the Krakatau having an eruption. Luckily nothing like the the big one in August 1883.

Found at: http://collectie.wereldculturen.nl/    TM-10004018

[earthstory]

Video footage of Anak #Krakatau after the devastating collapse - the old cone was completely destroyed and a crater lake now appears. The nearby islands were ravaged by a giant #tsunami #volcano #Indonesia

earthuncuttv

[yahoonewsphotos]

Volcano-triggered tsunami hits Indonesia's Sunda Strait, killing hundreds

A volcano-triggered tsunami has left at least 222 people dead and hundreds more injured after slamming without warning into beaches around Indonesia’s Sunda Strait, officials said Sunday, voicing fears that the toll would rise further.

Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the wave, which hit the coast of southern Sumatra and the western tip of Java about 9:30 pm (1430 GMT) on Saturday after a volcano known as the “child” of Krakatoa erupted, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.(AFP)

Photos from top: AP, Fauzy Chaniago/AP, Azwar Ipan/AFP/Getty Images, Tubagu/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock, Donal Husni/NurPhoto via Getty Images

See more photos of the volcano-triggered tsunami in Indonesia and our other slideshows on Yahoo News.

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[uss-edsall]

Listing hard to starboard, settling by the bow, the Houston was bathed from stem to stern in hostile white light, wooden decks splintering under gales of machine-gun fire. She seemed on the verge of capsizing, yardarms nearly touching the sea, when, according to John Wisecup, “she righted herself like a dog shaking water off its back,” perhaps momentarily counterflooded by an unnoted and gratuitous torpedo hit. When that happened, the colors, brought to life by the beams of hot carbon arcs, just seemed to snap to and wave over the watery battlefield. “Perhaps I only imagined it,” Walter Winslow wrote, “but it seemed as though a sudden breeze picked up the Stars and Stripes still firmly two-blocked on the mainmast, and waved them in one last defiant gesture.” As the Houston sank, going down by the broken bow, red tracers were seen, right to the end, still whipping down from the foremast’s machine gun platform. Gunnery Sergeant Standish, Wisecup wrote, “living up to Marine Corps legend, was a warrior to the end. “Many years have gone by,” wrote Wisecup, “but I can still vividly recall the scene. The stars and stripes still fast on the mainmast streaming aft in the breeze. The ‘Gunny’s’ fifty-caliber machine gun still sending out a line of tracers toward the Japs as the tired old Huey Maru slowly sank beneath the waters of the straits. “Not a word was uttered by anyone on the raft as they gazed at the spot where our ship had gone down.” Once upon a day, William Bernrieder, the booster who had led the USS Houston campaign, called her “the Nation’s safest insurance against foreign aggression—the expression of might upholding the right…. May we always regard her as the emissary of peace, but if fight she must—may the Cruiser Houston—the pride of our Navy—never strike her colors to an enemy.” That was the one thing her survivors would remember, as clearly as a first child’s birthday, long after they were left alone in the nighttime sea. She never struck her colors.

Ship of Ghosts, by James Hornfischer

[navyhistory]

In 2004, Chief Petty Officer Jordan Joseph “Joe” Garrett, USN (Ret.) sent us a memoir donation for our oral history program. The following are some of the excerpts of his harrowing ordeal with the loss of USS Houston.

We kept on swimming until finally, we came across life raft with about 27 people in or on it. After that I never saw Bandy again. The Chaplain was on there - Chaplain Rentz was his name. At one point, a young sailor came up to the raft and it was so overloaded that there was not anymore room for him. The Chaplain said something like, “Son, I’ve lived a good long life and you’re just a young boy, so you take my place. I’ll manage to make it.” I think the boy’s name was Walter Beeson. So the Chaplain gave up his rope and swam off into the darkness, and that was the last I ever saw of him.

[earthstory]

Now that the cone of Anak Krakatau has collapsed, it is producing Surtseyan eruptions like this from molten rock interacting with the ocean

dongenggeologi