At 10:02 a.m., the final and most violent of four explosions destroyed most of Krakatoa, ejecting an estimated 25 cubic kilometers of rock and ash and generating tsunamis up to 37 meters high. Over 36,000 people died, most drowned along the coastlines of Java and Sumatra. The blast was heard in Perth, Australia, and Rodrigues Island near Mauritius, some 3,000 miles distant.
Barometers in Britain registered the pressure wave from the explosion as it circled the globe seven times. Sunsets turned blood-red for months afterward across the world, inspiring painters and prompting fire brigades from London to New York to be called out under the mistaken belief that the sky itself was burning. Edvard Munch later claimed the fiery skies he witnessed influenced 'The Scream,' though scholars still debate whether he meant Krakatoa or a later eruption.
The sound itself remains the benchmark for acoustic events: recorded at 172 decibels roughly 100 miles from the source, it ruptured eardrums of sailors on ships dozens of miles away. The British ship Norham Castle, anchored 40 miles off, reported its crew deafened and the captain writing in the log that he believed the world was ending.
The eruption also produced the first globally distributed instrumental data on a natural disaster, as telegraph networks let news and barometric readings circle the earth within days, making Krakatoa arguably the first truly 'modern' natural catastrophe.