We’re all interested in record breakers. They’re one offs, cemented in history forever. So here at London Sound Proofing, we were wondering – what was the loudest sound ever recorded, and what made it?
Well we found the answer, and we’re going to share it with you here.
It was recorded way back in 1883, on August 27th just off the coast of Jarkarta, Indonesia. A volcano on the small island of Krakatoa was going through the cataclysmic stage of a months-long eruption. At around 10:20 AM it exploded. This explosion caused a sound heard, quite literally, around the world.
It’s thought that the explosion hit around 180 decibels. Let’s put that number in perspective. Jet engines are pretty loud, right? Well 180dB is around 13x louder. 2,200 miles away in Australia people could hear the eruption clearly immediately after it happened.
Eight miles away from the volcano lay an inhabited island. All 3,000 people there were killed as a result of lava and ash spewed out from the eruption. The eruption also caused a Tsunami. Some of its waves crested at over 100ft.
It caused a shockwave that travelled around the glove 7 times and measured on instruments 5 days after the eruption. 8,000 miles away on the coast of South Africa the tsunami waves reached, and smaller waves even registered as far as the British Isles.
It made for one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic eruptions in history.
So that’s where the loudest noise ever created came from. Whole we hear London Sound Proofing can’t protect your ears from the kind of noise, we can help reduce noise pollution in your home or office. If you’d like to find out more about us, or how we can help you feel free to get in touch today.