The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and EarthquakesHouston, Edwin J. (Edwin James)
Science
The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and Earthquakes
Houston, Edwin J. (Edwin James)
Earthquakes; Volcanoes
Although Batavia was 100 English miles from Krakatoa, yet after
travelling this distance the wave was sufficiently strong to enter
the city and flood its streets with water to a depth of several feet.
Fortunately, the loss of life was small in the city of Batavia, but
very great in the surrounding towns and villages.
The ocean waves varied in height at different times of the eruption.
The greatest were from fifty to eighty feet high. Just imagine the
effect of a wave twice the height of an ordinary house. The waves
caused great damage to the shipping in the neighborhood. In one
instance, a vessel was carried one and a half miles inland and left on
dry land thirty feet above the level of the sea.
The total loss of life by the waves has been estimated at 35,000
people; besides this, of course, there was a great amount of property
destroyed. The greatest loss was in the immediate neighborhood of
Krakatoa. Gigantic waves swept over the lowlands lying near the
shores of Sumatra and Java, where over areas several miles in width
nearly everything was destroyed, the houses, trees, and people being
swept away and the surface of the land greatly changed. The towns of
Karang and Anjer, as well as numerous smaller villages, were almost
completely destroyed.
The seaport town of Anjer, by far the most important of the above
towns, was almost completely swept away. The heavy stone lighthouse
was so completely obliterated that no traces of its heavy stone
foundations could afterwards be found. The Rev. Phillip Neale,
formerly a British chaplain at Batavia, from whose account of the
eruption of Krakatoa some of the above facts have been taken, tells
of the brave action of the keeper of the lighthouse at Anjer. Besides
his work as lighthouse keeper, to see that the light was constantly
burning during the night, he was charged with telegraphing to Batavia
the names of all passing vessels. On the fateful morning of the great
catastrophe, observing that the sun did not rise, he kept the light of
the lighthouse burning, and, notwithstanding the danger to which he
was exposed, continued at his post in order to send word to Batavia of
the passing of an English steamer. While doing this the lighthouse was
swept away and the brave man perished.
The following verbal account of the destruction of the port of Anjer
was given by a Dutch pilot stationed at Anjer. This description is
quoted by the Rev. Mr. Neale from an article prepared by him for
publication in "The Leisure Hour."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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