On August 27, 1883, the Krakatoa volcano, in the Sunda Strait, Indonesia, did more than erupt: it broke a record that no one has ever surpassed.
The blast reached 310 decibels. Crew members aboard ships located 64 kilometers away ruptured their eardrums at the very instant of the explosion, while those within a radius of 160 kilometers were left deaf by the pressure wave. More than 4.800 kilometers away, in Western Australia and on the island of Mauritius, people swore they were hearing heavy artillery fire, unaware that the source was on the other side of the ocean.
The hardest thing to believe is what happened afterward: the atmospheric pressure wave generated by that eruption circled the planet seven times over five days, recorded by barometers around the world. To this day, no human technology has managed to produce a sound with such reach.
