1815 eruption of Mount Tambora

On 15 July 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa in present-day Indonesia (then part of the Dutch East Indies), erupted in what is now considered the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded human history.

An overview of the eruption

Although the Mount Tambora eruption reached a violent climax on 10 April 1815, increased steaming and small phreatic eruptions occurred during the next six months to three years. The ash from the eruption column dispersed around the world and lowered global temperatures in an event sometimes known as the Year Without a Summer in 1816. This brief period of significant climate change triggered extreme weather and harvest failures in many areas around the world. Several climate forcings coincided and interacted in a systematic manner that has not been observed after any other large volcanic eruption since the early Stone Age.

Quotes about 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora

• On April 10th, 1815, six thousand miles away from here, on an island in Indonesia, a volcano erupted. It sent a massive plume of ash into the air that eventually encircled the globe. A year later, 1816 became “the year without a summer.” Incessant rains fell here in Norway, Britain, China and the U.S. It snowed 20 inches in July in Boston. Crops failed. Livestock died. People starved. Food riots. Looting. Burning of cities. Floods of refugees. Epidemics of typhus. And it took decades to recover. Millions died in places just like this — the worst famine of the 19th Century. No one saw it coming. With famine, no one ever does, until it’s too late.
  • David Beasley, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture of the World Food Programme, 10 December 2021