The disaster that nearly wiped out humanity

A Spanish-language blog has picked up the story of the earliest disaster featured in my book A Disastrous History of the World (Historia Mundial de los desastres).  A disaster that may have come close to wiping out the human race.   http://www.taringa.net/posts/info/15902116/La-erupcion-que-estuvo-a-punto-de-aniquilar-a-la-Humanidad.html

It was a huge volcanic eruption more than 70,000 years ago at what is now Lake Toba (pictured above) on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.   It is thought to have been one of the most powerful ever, at about 28 times the strength of the Tambora eruption of 1815, the biggest of modern times.

The eruption itself must have been deadly enough, but much worse was the volcanic winter that followed.   The ancient volcano spewed out an estimated 670 cubic miles of debris that dimmed the sun’s rays for six years.

As catastrophic global cooling resulted, the world’s estimated human population at that time of a million was reduced to perhaps just 10,000.   The eruption gouged out a vast crater which filled with water to produce picturesque Lake Toba, now a noted tourist destination.

Indonesia - land of tsunamis and volcanoes

Indonesia has been living up to its reputation as the most seismically active country on earth. At least 300 people have been killed on the Mentawai Islands off Sumatra by a tsunami, which has washed away at least 13 villages.

After the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, that killed 94,000 people on Sumatra, a new early warning system was installed, but Indonesian officials say two buoys off the Mentawai Islands that formed part of it had been vandalised and were out of service. Even if the system had been functioning properly, though, warnings may still have reached local people too late.

Meanwhile, in central Java, 32 people have been killed by the eruption of the volcano, Mount Merapi. It is regarded as Indonesia’s most active, but the area around is heavily populated, and tens of thousands of people are now in temporary shelters.

Indonesia has seen many major eruptions – the most famous being Krakatoa in 1883, which killed around 36,000 people, though much more powerful was Tambora in 1815, which was responsible for perhaps 80,000 deaths in Indonesia, and thousands more around the world because of the volcanic winter the eruption caused. For more, see A Disastrous History of the World.

*Latest about my books on the internet:- http://hexham.myvillage.com/article/hexhams-disastrous-history

Volcanic ash

Iceland’s second major volcanic explosion in less than a month (see also my blog of March 21) has led to the cancellation of all flights across the UK for the second day running. Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, Belgium and the Netherlands also closed their airspace yesterday, while France and Germany suffered severe disruption.

It is a reminder of how the ash flung out from a volcano can be even more devastating than the eruption itself. The eruption of Laki on Iceland in June, 1783 produced a cloud that spread as far as Moscow and Baghdad. In England, it turned the weather bleak and foggy while in Alaska, the Kauwerak tribe dubbed 1783 “the year summer did not come.” There followed one of the worst winters in 250 years in Europe and America. According to some estimates, the eruption indirectly caused up to 200,000 deaths.

The effects of Laki were probably exacerbated by the eruption of another volcano two months later – Mount Asama in Japan. It lowered temperatures, causing crop failure and famine, with harvests not recovering for a decade.

Indonesia’s Tambora went up in smoke in 1815, producing another year without a summer. Snow fell in Canada and New England in June, and in England in July. The famine and disease of the aftermath were deadly enough to kill perhaps 80,000 in Indonesia and 200,000 in Europe. Alarming, but not as deadly as the prehistoric eruption at Toba (also in Indonesia). The volcanic winter that followed is reckoned to have wiped out 99% of the humans then walking the earth.

Icelandic eruptions

An Icelandic volcano that had been dormant for two centuries has erupted, sending lava 300 feet into the air. About 500 people have been evacuated from the sparsely populated area about 75 miles east of Reykjavik.

Iceland is a mysterious country of volcanoes, geysers, bubbling, spitting mud and lunar landscapes, and there are fears that the eruption could cause flooding, or spark off the much more dangerous nearby Katla volcano.

Iceland’s deadliest ever eruption, and one of the deadliest in human history, came in 1783 when the Laki volcano threw the equivalent of Mont Blanc into the air. Burning lava overwhelmed 20 villages, blocked rivers burst their banks, and many also died from toxic fumes.

As with so many disasters, though, the real damage came in the aftermath (see my blog of March 17). In Iceland itself, crops failed, livestock starved, fish disappeared, and about 10,000 people – a quarter of the island’s population – died. Much of the Western hemisphere was enveloped in a volcanic winter, and some estimates say that this climate change caused more than 200,000 deaths. For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.