The Loudest Sound Ever Recorded
By: Grant Piper
Tags: History, Science, World, This Day In History, Nature

The Loudest Sound Ever Recorded

It was heard nearly 3,000 miles away and the shock wave circled the globe three times

Throughout the day on August 27th, 1883, people around the Pacific would look up to the sky and scratch their heads. Their eyes saw blue skies, fluffy white clouds and no signs of rain and yet they heard thunder. In Australia, people remarked that the army or navy must have been doing drills out of sight because the sound of cannon fire and gunfire could be heard intermittently in places such as Perth. Men on ships looked around frantically for signs of storm or foe but saw nothing.

What had been mistaken for thunder and cannon calls was the distant rumble of the loudest sound ever recorded making its way around the globe.

Sound and Fury

Depiction of the sky after the eruption of Krakatoa. (Public domain)

This remarkable sound was created by the ancient volcano Krakatoa. On August 27th, the mountain blew itself to pieces in one of the most violent geologic events in Earth’s history. What had been an island mountain rising over 2,600 feet above the waves of the Indonesian islands was reduced to nothing.

The combination of the powerful explosions that ripped through the volcano and the subsequent collapse of the rock into an undersea magma chamber resulted in the loudest sound ever recorded.

It clocked in at 310 decibels.

Frightening Context

Credit: OSHA (osha.gov)

The loudest sound ever created by humans, not by natural causes, was said to be the atomic bomb blasts over Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Those clocked in at around 250 decibels. NASA’s highest recorded decibel reading was 204 and that was the first stage of the Saturn V rocket.

310 decibels is loud enough to kill you. Ear drums rupture between 150 and 160 decibels. That means Krakatoa was exponentially higher on the decibel scale as a sound high enough to cause your ear drums to literally explode. A sound exponentially louder than anything likely to have been heard in thousands, perhaps millions of years.

The explosion was loud enough that this level of noise was recorded many miles away from the site of the blast. A sound of 174 decibels was recorded by barometers 100 miles from Krakatoa. That meant anyone within an 100 mile radius of Krakatoa had a chance of being literally deafened by this sound.

100 mile radius for context (Own creation)

Miles away farther still, the sound was recorded at the same level as an uncovered shotgun blast near your head.

And all the way in Australia, some 2,800 miles distant, an ocean away, it was reported as far off rifle or cannon fire.

That is roughly the same distance between Los Angeles and New York City. Imagine being on the street in Manhattan and hearing something that was occurring in downtown Los Angeles. It’s almost unbelievable. Almost.

Circling The Globe

Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

Luckily, this event happened in a modern enough time that barometers and other atmospheric pressure sensors were prevalent all over the world. From heavy industry to ships at sea, the resulting shock wave was felt by all. In fact, all sound is is your eardrum detecting and interpreting aerial shock waves.

This sound was so loud that the shock wave was recorded moving around the globe. It circled the globe not once, not twice, but three times before petering out.

The force of the blast was so great, it was reported that an island less than ten miles from the volcano was devoid of all life. Three thousand natives were reportedly killed, most likely due to the force of the shock wave alone.

The sound alone killed them.

On this day, 137 years ago, the most destructive and terrible sound ever recorded was let loose by an unprecedented blast and circled the globe. Nature’s fury was on full display, a fury that humans have only dreamed of matching in their darkest dreams.