GREATEST EXPLOSION

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3314, 25 June 1931, Page 3

GREATEST EXPLOSION

36,000 KILLED WHEN KRAKATOA "POPPED." Will the volcano of Krakatoa repeat the great explosion of 1883 ? Millions who live within reach of its ever threatening long arm in the Far East would be thankful for a dependable answer to that question, says The Scientific American (New York). Science, too, would like an answer. In the great event of 1883, this volvano, lying in Sunda Straits, between Sumatra and Java, suddenly blew into fragments and hurled into the air a cubic mile of powdered matter. We read: The original volcanic island, nve miles in length, three miles in width, and 6600 feet high, was replaced by a vast submarine trench eight miles long and more than 1000 feet in depth. The explosion was heard 3000 miles away, and its air wave travelled several times around the earth, while the great seismic sea wave devastated

the island in the vicinity, drowning 36,000 people. " The wave travelled across the Indian Ocean at the rate of 371 miles per hour, and was recorded even at Cape Horn and in France. No record of an explosion,as vast as Krakatoas exists in , , Then for 44 years. commented ■& eruption occurred in the deertrehlS lOOO'ieefcbelow the water volc^nicvbombs'were,hurled to the surface and 4000 feet: into the air. who dwelt in the vicinity were apprehensive. . Last summer, old Krakatoa's youthful offspring, Anak Krakatoa, at present a small island crater, growled, and menaced its neighbours once more. Alternately the new crater,

comparatively small but promising, raised itself amove the sea and sank beneath the waters.; . What eventually;wilVhappen? Who knows? Those who believe the explosion of 'BB was due merely to sea water leaking in on hot rock maintain that a similar event cannot happen again/for the roek *». all blown ■ Others, hold that Uhe real cause was the explosion of superheated steam absorbed in and all through the molten magma in the earth's crust? A cubic/ mile of matter popped like popcorn, and may pop again. The people who live near Krakatoa wonder. :" *_2E--\''