EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

With the bush fires in Australia, the earthquakes in the Caribbean, and especially the eruption of the Taal volcano in the Philippines (see sidebar), we thought it might be interesting to look back in time at one of the first major natural disasters of the age of electronic communications, Krakatoa.

Indonesia is a group of thousands of small islands in Southeast Asia. Two of the largest islands in this archipelago are Sumatra and Java. Separating them is the busy waterway known as the Sunda Strait. On the southeast flank of the strait is the volcanic island known as Krakatoa. Volcanologists believe the volcano rose from the ocean and exploded in 416 AD, completely destroying the volcano island. Over the next 1,200 years, regular volcanic eruptions reformed and rebuilt the volcano. Over time, the volcano sealed itself, causing a huge collection of gases and magma just waiting to explode.

On May 20th, 1883 a large tremor was felt on the Krakatoa Island