Today we give you eight of the deadliest volcanoes on record. So make sure to avoid the death and destruction by ducking and covering, it’s the best way to avoid the imminent death.
In 1815 Mount Tambora in Indonesia rained down fire and ash, causing 92,000 deaths. This is still considered one of the largest eruptions in recorded history. As if the eruption and ash cloud wasn’t enough, there was a subsequent tsunami caused by the eruption. The eruption spewed enough ash into the atmosphere to bury everything within 75 km under a meter of ash.
Krakatau, or Krakatoa, erupted in 1883 and cost at least 36,000 lives. The eruption caused the volcano to collapse upon itself which destroyed the island and most of the surrounding areas. Most of the deaths credited to Krakatau were from the resulting tsunamis that ravaged the land.
1902 saw the eruption of Mount Pelée in Martinique. This devastating eruption caused the end of 29,025 lives. The volcano was active for years before the 1902 eruption, so much so that the locals called Mount Pelée “fire mountain”, a more than apt title for the deathly mountain.
In 1985 a relatively small eruption from the Nevado del Ruiz volcano caused the town of Armero to be destroyed. This caused an estimated 25,000 lives, mostly at the hands of mud flows caused by the eruption. Nevado del Ruiz had two previous eruptions, although neither caused as much devastation as the 1985 incident.
Unzen in the Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan saw a devastating volcanic eruption in 1972. In that year one of Mount Unzen’s lava domes collapsed and caused a megatsunami that took the lives of 15,000 people. This is still considered to be Japan’s worst ever volcanic related disaster.
Laki, or technically Lakagígar, is a volcanic fissure in Iceland. In 1783 a fissure opened that ultimately resulted in lava fountains reaching up to 4,600 feet, this horrific even ended up taking the lives of over 9,000 people. The after-effects for Iceland were catastrophic, causing the deaths of up to 25% of the population of Iceland perished due to famine and fluoride poisoning.
On May 19, 1919 Mount Kelud in Indonesia erupted and took the lives of 5,000 people. The resulting mudflows were the cause of most of the loss of lives. The volcano is nowhere near being dormant, in 2007 there erupted and thanks to the authorities evacuating 30,000 residents there were no lives lost.
1882 saw the eruption of Indonesia’s Galunggung volcano. This eruption took 4,011 lives and destroyed 114 villages. The main cause of the majority of the destruction was as a result of mudflows, when the volcano erupted it started spewing boiling water and lava.
