The Sunda Catastrophe

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 232, 3 September 1883, Page 3

The Sunda Catastrophe

AN APPALLING CALAMITY. In no part of the world, perhaps are volcanic foice? more powerful and active than m that section containing the Melay Archipelago, It is traversed by a volcanic belt, running throng it m curves, and marked by a broken mountain |chain, the altitude of the latter m some of .the peaks, being from 9000 to 12,000 feet. Volcanic cones abound m ibis chain, and the centre of greatest activity seems to be m Java, where forty-sx volcauic cones have been enumerated, twenty of them being ma greater or less condition of continuous activity. The eruptions are awful at • times. This is how two are descnbe^ m that .admirable work "Wallace a Australia:"— , . , -n <<In the year 1772 the volcano PapandaVang, m the^outh-west part of the islaad, threw out such an jmm^nse quantity of/scoriae and ashes, that Pr. Jaughan thinks a layer nearlyfifty feet thick way spread over an area having; a radius of seven miles, all, this being thrown out (luring a single night. Forty native villages were buried beneath .it, aad about 3000 persbnß aTe supposed to have^perished between this single sunset and sunrise." l "" ' . : ■- «« Still more terrible and destructive was the eruption of Mount Galunggong fa few miles nortn,eas*. of Fapandayang) m the Bth October, 18S2. At noon on that day not * cloud could^e seen-m the sky. * the wild teast gladly sought the friendly shades of the dense forest, andnotfr&undwasto be heard over the highly cultivated dechvitiesof the mountain, or over the nch adjoining plain,UbutMie dull creaking of Borne Live cart drawn by the sluggish buffalo The natives, under the sheicor oi«eir rude . huts, were giving, then?- 1 selves up. to, midday repose, when su&lenly a frightful thundering; wao heardinrthe earth, and from the top of this old volcano a d«k, dense masß was seen rising higher and higher into the air, andispread.ng itself out over the dear sky,with such %n appalling rapidity that m a few" moments the whole landseape>was shrouded m the darkness of tight. Through the thick, darkness flashes of lightning gleamed incessantly m every direction, and. many natives were etruck down to the earth by stenes falling from the sky. Then a deiugo of hot water and flowing mod shot up Irom the crater like a watewpout, and poured ddwn the mountainside, sweeping away trees and beasts and human bodies m its seething mass. At the same moment, stones and ashes and sand were pro-, iected to anjenourmous height into the air. .iftdVVs tHey.ieli^ destroyed nearly everything within 0 & radius of twenty miles, while quantities oi the same xratenal fell beyond the River Taudoi, which is iorty" miles off. A few villages that were situated on high hills on the lower declivities of the mountain escaped the surrounding destrnotion by being raised above the strtams of hot water and flowing mud, while moßt of the ashes and stonesand' sand that were thrown out, passed completely over them, and destroyed viHages ? that were further removed iiom tßf centre of this great eruption. -The thundering was fit st heard at h*lt-past 1 o'clock. At 4 o'clock, the extreme violence of tho eruption was past ; : at 5 o'clock the sky began to grew, clear once more, and the gamwawUhat at noon ■ had shed, his •lowing light over the. rich and peaceful landscape at evening "was casting his rays over lhesam« spots, then chanflied^ IX T^ss^r^' f^m^n. a eecond eruptiori occurred ufour days j later, more ( t»mble than the first. hills and.'vaieys were formed, and the courses of two rivers were changed. The river Waina bore dowji to the sea the carcasses^ deer^.^rhinpcerosev tigers,, and^eranimafe, and the dead bodies of men. One .ifunarea' and fourteen villages and 4000 people were des-r, Ikedistu-riiaiice that is now taking plStfin the same locality, appears to be onT scale ot similar intensity and grandeur to those above described. Detailed accounts of it will be eagerly looked for. It is not every day that the navigation of a gttaiilifceSunda is nearly destroyed by a volcanic .eruption. > A cablegram elsewhere leadß- to the inference that the eruption was uncommon to a degree even of its kind.^u',);;. V\- : ' : -J ' ■