Krakatoa volcano eruption

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Some scholars believe that a Krakatoa volcanic eruption occurred in Indonesia in 535 AD. There is no direct evidence, but if it did occur, it had enormous impacts on Europe and Asia along with the rest of the world.

The claim is that the earth was cracked by a volcanic eruption in the Krakatoa region of modern Java, Indonesia. Several times worse than the 1883 eruption (which was heard in Australia, over 2,000 miles away), the main part of this 6th century explosion is believed to have lasted perhaps 10 days and would have been the equivalent of 2 billion Hiroshima-sized nuclear explosions. According to one ancient document, the islands of Java and Sumatra were once connected as one large island. This eruption may have been the cause of sinking much of that original island undersea. It can be argued that a region nearly 30 miles in diameter shattered and fell below the ocean, forming the Sunda Strait.

The tremendous energy released mixed with seawater and would have sent a plume of steam and ash over 25 miles into the air, creating a cloud 200 feet thick over the entire globe that blotted the sun from view. The result would have been similar to "nuclear winter" scenarios. The world may have cooled by as much as 5 to 10 degrees Celsius for two decades. Circumstantial evidence for this eruption includes writers from the period who recorded a dimmed sun, an unseasonable failure of crops, summers without heat, crops chilled by north winds, a lack of rain--even snow during the summer. When it did rain, it was tinted red, as if it were bloody.

The massive, lethal climate changes that would have resulted from this eruption may explain evidence of floods, famines and droughts in the years after 535. Migrant peoples began moving during these years, perhaps as a result of these climactic changes. The Huns at this time invaded northern India and Central Asia. Northern European tribes invaded into the south, attacking Rome. Plagues broke out: the worst was bubonic plague, which began in the Byzantine empire and swept through Europe, decimating half the population in 50 years.