In April 1815, the biggest known eruption of the historical period blew apart the Tambora volcano, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, 12,000km from the UK. What happened next testifies to the enormous reach of the biggest volcanic blasts.
1815年4月，历史上最有名的喷发使距印度尼西亚12,000公里的印度尼西亚苏姆巴瓦岛上的坦波拉火山炸毁。接下来发生的事情证明白最大的火山爆炸的巨大影响力。
The Tambora volcano had shown no signs of life for 1,000 years; a single eruption in the previous five millennia provided the only indication that magma was still churning far beneat.It was.On 5 April 1815, a titanic explosion hurled a cloud of ash to a height of more than 30km. Violent, but short-lived, the blast lasted just two hours, after which the volcano returned to a state of brooding menace.According to the lieutenant governor, Thomas Stamford (later Sir Stamford) Bingley Raffles, to whom volcanologists are indebted for his accounts of the eruption, the detonation was so loud that it was mistaken across Java for cannon fire, causing consternation among the British troops, which had ousted the Dutch and French forces just a few years earlier.
坦波拉火山〔Tambora〕的火山已经有1000年没有生命迹象了。在过去的五千年中，一次喷发供应了唯一的迹象，说明岩浆仍在搅拌之下。1815年4月5日，发生了巨大的爆炸，将一团灰烬推向30公里以上的高度。猛烈，但是爆炸是短暂的，爆炸只持续了两个小时，之后火山又恢复了沉重的威逼状态。因记录了火山喷发大事而令火山学家们感谢不已的副州长托马斯·斯坦福德·宾利·莱佛士〔后来的斯坦福德爵士〕表示，此次火山爆发声音之巨大，以至被误认为是爪哇岛爆发战斗时的加农大炮声，令几年前曾驱除荷兰和法国军队的英国士兵们慌张失措。
But the blast was small beer in comparison with what followed. After five days of relative calm, the climactic phase of the eruption began with a colossal explosion that launched a towering column of ash to the edge of space. For four or five days, utter blackness reigned across the island as the hurricane blasts of hot ash and scalding gas – known as pyroclastic flows – scoured the flanks of the volcano of everything and everyone, and drifts of ash metres thick entombed what few signs of life remained. When the explosions ceased and the darkness finally lifted, the view revealed was a vision of Tolkien’s Mordor; a grey landscape within which nothing live