A
volcano on the small island of
Sumbawa in
Indonesia. Its explosion in 1815 was the largest in recorded history. The earth was plunged into a
volcanic winter. The following year was known in Europe and America as the
Year Without a Summer, as crops were devastated by abnormal frosts in a very short growing season.
Tambora was 4000 m to 4500 m high before 1815, and 2800 m high after the eruption. It might have been dormant for five thousand years before that. Between six months and three years of minor activity preceded a major eruption on 5 April 1815, leading to the cataclysmic eruption of 10-11 April. It continued for almost a week. Earthquakes were felt 500 km away.
Global temperature cooled by perhaps 3°C (less in Arctic regions, according to ice cores) as a result of Tambora's explosion. It is estimated that 10 000 people died immediately and another 82 000 died of starvation and cholera. Much of the East Indies was covered in ash, and the island of Sumbawa was covered up to 1.5 m deep in places.
Of six sultanates on the island, two, Papekat and Tambora, were totally destroyed, and that of Sumbawa was not re-established until 1837.
Extraordinary sunsets occurred all over the world for some years. One other fascinating thing about this is what was happening in Europe at the time. Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated after decades of war, and had abdicated in April 1814. Suddenly on 15 March 1815 he landed in France, and entered Paris on 20 March with a huge army flocking to him as he moved. After a year of peace, the wars that had racked the continent were on again. And what happens three weeks later? The sky is dark and the colour of blood, the air is filled with ash.