At least 280 people have been killed and hundreds injured after a tsunami struck the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra without warning on Saturday night. The country's disaster management agency, BNPB, says the possible cause of the tsunami was undersea landslides after the Anak Krakatoa volcano erupted.
Tsunami triggered by volcano kills at least 43 in Indonesia
The Anak Krakatoa volcano has seen increased activity in recent months and briefly erupted on Friday, creating an ash cloud that rose 400 metres (1,300ft) above the mountain. The Krakatoa island group in the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Sumatra, is the remains of one of the world’s most famous volcanoes. It is made up of three outer islands belonging to the rim of the mostly submerged Krakatoa caldera and a new cone, Anak Krakatoa (Child of Krakatoa), that has been forming a new island since 1927.
Krakatau exploded spectacularly in a devastating eruption in August 1883 that killed more than 30,000 people -- mostly by the massive tsunamis triggered by the volcano. The blasts were heard thousands of kilometres away and had been estimated to be equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT -- about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
