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Reflecting on the Tambora eruption 210 years ago
The 210th anniversary of the Tambora eruption is a moment to contemplate, and to educate the public about volcanoes’ threats and their value to mankind.
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A picture released by the NASA Earth Observatory on July 22, 2009 shows a detailed photograph of the summit caldera of the Tambora volcano, on the island of Sumbawa. (AFP/NASA)
The cataclysmic eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, West Nusa Tenggara, lasted several months from April to July 1815.
The death toll was up to 250,00 in Tambora vicinity and around the globe as the eruptions caused bad weather, prolonged winter, devastated agriculture and led to famine.
The 210th anniversary of the Tambora eruption is a moment to contemplate, and to educate the public about volcanoes’ threats and their value to mankind.
Indonesia is home to 127 active volcanoes, which is about 13 percent of all active volcanoes in the world. We are sitting on two entangled rings of fire: The Circum-Pacific and the Circum-Mediterranean, two volcanic belts that knot the globe. Most of the volcanoes are beneath the ocean. There are thousands of underwater volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean, one of them was Mount Krakatau, which emerged from the bottom of Sunda Strait.
Towering over Sumbawa Island, Tambora is "napping" peacefully now. In 1815, the eruption was rated 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), VEI 8 being the highest.
The eruption of Mt. Tambora was one of the most cataclysmic events in the history of mankind. Its eruption strength was 10 times more violent than the 1883 Krakatau eruption (VEI 6), and 100 times stronger than the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy (VEI 5) in 79 AD.
Ash and aerosols injected into the stratosphere, blocking the sunlight and causing global cooling, reduced the average surface temperature by roughly 1 degree Celsius in just one year.
