The Evening Star (February 15, 1946)
Editorial: Krakatoa and atom bombs
Speculation continues in military and scientific circles concerning the possible tidal-wave effects of an underwater explosion of the atomic bomb, as planned in the third phase of the joint Army-Navy-civilian tests on a target fleet in the Pacific. In the first two experiments off Bikini Atoll this spring and summer the bombs will be exploded in the air and at sea level, but in the final test, tentatively scheduled for some time next year, a bomb will be detonated far below the ocean’s surface. Varying opinions have been expressed informally in official quarters as to how great a disturbance will be churned up in the ocean by the terrific blast and how far the waves will travel.
Perhaps nature has supplied an answer to the questions being raised in this connection. The great volcanic explosion of the Island of Krakatoa in 1883 has provided an object lesson on the effects of a powerful explosion below the sea, at least insofar as tidal-wave reactions are involved. Although the exact force behind the historic Krakatoa upheaval – sometimes referred to as the world’s greatest explosion – will never be known, it must have been of atomic-like proportions to have produced the results reported by a special investigating committee of the Royal Society of London in 1888.
Krakatoa, an eighteen-square mile island in Sunda Strait, between Sumatra and Java, had been grumbling for several months before the final catastrophic convulsion of August 27, 1883. The preliminary eruptions apparently permitted the ocean to rush into the deep, fiery recesses of the volcano, far beneath the surface of the ocean. The rapidly expanding steam caused an explosion that was heard 3,000 miles away, that cost 36,000 lives, that sent volcanic dust around the globe and that created waves which were observed on the shores of all continents. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes these waves as follows:
“A succession of waves was generated which appear to have been of two kinds – long waves with periods of more than an hour and shorter but higher waves, with irregular and much briefer intervals. The greatest disturbance, probably resulting from a combination of both kinds of waves, reached a height of about 50 feet. The destruction caused by the rush of such a body of sea water along the coasts and low islands was enormous. All vessels lying in harbor or near shore were stranded; towns, villages and settlements close to the sea were either at once or by successive inundations entirely destroyed. … The sea waves traveled to vast distances from the center of propagation. The long wave reached Cape Horn, 7,818 geographic miles away, and possibly the English Channel, 11,040 miles distant.”
The Krakatoa explosion apparently occurred about 1,000 feet below sea level, as what was left of the volcano was that far under the sea after the explosion. Whether the detonation of an atomic bomb of the Nagasaki type that far under the sea would be as cataclysmic – or more so – probably only the proposed test will tell.