Krakatoa
Do you know the story of Krakatoa?
It was an island in the Pacific Ocean, situated in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.
I say was, because it is no more.
Rising over1,400 feet (425 m) from the surface of the sea, it wasn’t a mere hump of sand eviscerated by wind and waves, but a towering presence above the crashing waves.
The island, like all islands unassociated with a continental mass, was volcanic, and had been rumbling for months. Then, on 27 August 1883, it exploded. For two days, the island detonated, blowing its actual top.
The eruption gave rise to a hundred-foot wave that destroyed entire villages in the nearby islands. The wave was felt in the Indian Ocean, through Cape Horn. Rounding the Cape, it sped northward. Though diminished in size, it remained intact until the English Channel.
The sound of the explosion the literal shot heard around the world. The timing of the barometric pulse caused by the eruption was recorded in many major cities, including Calcutta, Sydney, St. Petersburg, Liverpool and New York.
The ash produced by such an event rose into the stratosphere, and was carried around the globe giving rise to spectacular sunsets, blue moons, and cooling the entire Earth for an average of a half a degree Celsius for an entire year.
When the inferno of white-hot lava, molten rock, steam, and smoke finally subsided, the island that stood taller than a small mountain, had become a cavity a thousand feet below sea level.
There are firsthand accounts of sailors whose eardrums burst because of the explosion, who wondered if this were the end of the world, and thought of their loved ones left at home.
Could you imagine being the scientist that recorded the change in barometric pressure? What must they have thought was happening?
Was Earth tearing herself apart?
I love stories like this because they illustrate two things:
- Everything is connected. One little island in the middle of the ocean made its effects felt around the world. We’re still talking about it over a hundred and forty years later.
- Every generation has their trials.
We make educated guesses on what life was like before recorded history, and the general consensus is: it wasn’t easy. Since we’ve started writing things down, there have been wars (upon wars upon wars), depressions, recessions. There have been famines and plagues. Exploding islands.
And yet, despite all of this, people have survived.
Thrived.
They may have felt the ground beneath them shake, or experienced an event so catastrophic that they wondered– is this it? Is this how it ends?
Whatever you’re facing right now—whatever feels insurmountable or isolating—someone, somewhere, in some time, has stood where you’re standing. They, too, felt the ground beneath them quake. Some of them didn’t just survive; they found ways to build something new in the aftermath.
You’re part of that lineage. Not because you’re destined to suffer, but because you’re human, and humans have always found a way through. The ripples of what you do now, how you respond, who you become in the middle of this—they’ll reach further than you know.
The island is gone, but the waves it created traveled the entire world.