10 Volcanoes that killed most people in the world

Mount Tambora Photo By NASA Expedition 20 crew – Wikimedia Commons

10 Volcanoes that killed most people in the world

Volcanic eruptions can be extremely violent. Some volcanoes have erupted catastrophically, killing large numbers of people or other life forms.

Volcanoes can endanger nearby communities by spewing boiling clouds of volcanic ash down their flanks, causing tsunamis and unleashing powerful mudflows made of ash and melted glacial ice.

The eruptions listed below have resulted in over 3,000 known human fatalities.
Other, larger eruptions have occurred, but no one lived nearby to be threatened, such as the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes eruption in Alaska in 1912.

These types of eruptions serve as a reminder that our planet is alive and, in some cases, dangerous.

Let’s take a look at the volcanoes that killed the most people in the world.

1. Mount Tambora

Mount Tambora, also known as Mount Tamboro or Gunung Tambora in Indonesia, is a volcanic mountain on Sumbawa island’s northern coast.

In April 1815, it erupted in the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, as well as the largest of the current geological epoch.

Although estimates differ, the death toll ranged from at least 71,000 to over 250,100 people.

The volcanic explosivity index was 7. A total of 160-213 cubic kilometres of material were ejected into the atmosphere as a result of the eruption.

The eruption was so powerful that it contributed to global climate anomalies in the years that followed, and 1816 became known as the “year without a summer” due to the severe impact on North American and European weather.

2. Krakatoa

Krakatoa, also known as Krakatau in Indonesia, is a volcano on Rakata Island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.

Its explosive eruption in 1883 was one of the most devastating in recorded history. The lava flow lasted months, and the devastating eruption killed over 36,000 people.

The eruptions began on the 20th of May 1883 and lasted until the 27th of August 1883, when more than 70% of Krakatoa’s island was destroyed, collapsing into an archipelago.

Since the late twentieth century, there has been new eruptive activity, with a large collapse in December 2018 causing a deadly tsunami.

The tsunami killed 426 people, making it the deadliest volcanic tsunami in Indonesian history since the 1883 Sunda Strait tsunami, which originated on the same island.

3. Mount Pelée

Mount Pelée Photo By Sapakagadewmoinjadiw – Wikimedia Commons

Mount Pelée, also known as Montagne Pelée in French, is an active volcanic mountain on the Caribbean island of Martinique.

Mount Pelée’s eruption in 1902 was a volcanic eruption that shook history. The eruptive activity began on April 23, 1902, with a series of phreatic explosions from Mount Pelée’s summit, and it claimed over 30,000 lives at the time.

The main eruption, on May 8, 1902, left only two survivors in the direct path of the blast flow.

Ludger Sylbaris survived because he was in a poorly ventilated, dungeon-like jail cell, while Léon Compère-Léandre, who lived on the outskirts of town, escaped with severe burns.

4. Nevado del Ruiz

Nevado del Ruiz Photo By Dr EG – Wikimedia Commons

Mount Ruiz (Spanish: Nevado Del Ruiz) is a volcano in the Cordillera Central of the Andes in west-central Colombia, best known for its two 1985 eruptions, which were among the most destructive in recorded history.

On November 13, 1985, two explosions occurred on the mountain’s northeast side, and magma blasted outward melting the mountain’s ice and snow cap. Within 3 hours, the Earth rumbled as mudflows towering nearly 30 meters swept through the countryside.

It killed more than 70% of the city’s population, which was estimated to be around 23,000 people.

Mud also overflowed the nearby Gual River, and on the mountain’s western side, another mudslide killed about 1,000 people in the town of Chinchiná.

5. Mount Samalas

Samalas, also known as Rinjani Tua, was part of what is now known as the Rinjani volcanic complex on the Indonesian island of Lombok.

The Samalas volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok erupted catastrophically in 1257. The eruption had a probable Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7, making it one of the largest in the current Holocene epoch.

The event produced tens of kilometres-high eruption columns and pyroclastic flows that buried much of Lombok and crossed the sea to reach the neighbouring island of Sumbawa.

The floods destroyed human settlements, including Pamatan, the capital of a kingdom on Lombok. The death toll was estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000.

6. Mount Unzen

Mount Unzen Photo By Japan Coast Guard – Wikimedia Commons

Mount Unzen, also known as Unzen-dake in Japanese, is an active volcanic group of several overlapping stratovolcanoes on the island of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island.

In 1792, the collapse of one of its many lava domes caused a megatsunami that killed 14,524 people, making it Japan’s worst volcanic disaster.

Following that, there were no major eruptions until June 3, 1991, when an eruption forced the evacuation of thousands of nearby homes and killed 43 people.

7. Mount Vesuvius

Vesuvius, also known as Mount Vesuvius or Italian Vesuvio, is an active volcano in southern Italy that rises above the Bay of Naples on the Campania plain.

Its most famous eruption was in 79 AD, and it was one of the deadliest in European history.

In the autumn of 79 AD, the mountain violently ejected a deadly cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km, ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice, and hot ash, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

So far, the remains of over 1,500 people have been discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum, with the total death toll from the eruption unknown but estimated to be 13,000+.

8. Kelud

Kelud is an active stratovolcano in the Indonesian city of Kediri, East Java. Kelud, like many Indonesian volcanoes and others on the Pacific Ring of Fire, has a history of large explosive eruptions.

Over 10,000 people were killed by Mount Kelud’s worst eruption in 1586. On May 19, 1919, another eruption at Kelud killed an estimated 5,000 people, the majority of whom were killed by hot mudflows.

Other eruptions have occurred with no fatalities.

An effusive explosion in 2007 filled the crater with a lava dome. Its last eruption on February 13, 2014, destroyed the lava dome and ejected boulders, stones, and ashes 500 kilometres away in West Java.

9. Santa Maria

Santa Maria Volcano is a large active volcano in Guatemala’s western highlands, near the city of Quetzaltenango in the Quetzaltenango Department.

The first recorded eruption of Santa Mara occurred in October 1902.

The eruption began on October 24, with the largest explosions taking place over the next two days, ejecting an estimated 8 cubic kilometres of magma. It lasted 19 days and generated 5.5 cubic kilometres of dacite pyroclastic debris.

On October 25, the largest Plinian eruption occurred, resulting in a 28-kilometre-high column of ash.

The death toll is estimated to be 6,000.

10. Mount Galunggung

Galunggung Photo By Ocyid X – Wikimedia Commons

Mount Agung, also known as Gunung Agung in Indonesia and Piek Van Bali in the Netherlands, is a volcano in northeastern Bali, Indonesia.

Galunggung’s first historical eruption occurred in 1822, resulting in pyroclastic flows and lahars that killed 4,011 people.

After being dormant for 120 years, it erupted in 1963, killing 1,600 people and displacing 86,000.

The most recent major eruption on Galunggung occurred in 1982, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 4 and killed 18 people indirectly through traffic accidents and starvation.