1816 became known in Europe as the "Year Without a Summer". The year before, Indonesia’s Mount Tambora had erupted in a huge explosion. Ash from the volcano darkened skies around the globe, resulting in failed harvests, famine and epidemics.
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00:00 The eruption of 1815 deposited millions of cubic meters of volcanic material on Sumbawa
00:15 Island.
00:20 It's believed 92,000 people died in all, 40,000 straight away.
00:34 Today we have this beautiful scenery and we can see what happened in 1815 here.
00:43 1815 was when the Tambora volcano erupted, the most powerful in recorded history.
00:52 What happened on the island of Sumbawa was felt around the world.
00:57 Climate data confirmed that the eruption caused global temperatures to cool, with a devastating
01:02 impact on agriculture around the world.
01:12 In parts of Asia, the monsoon rains were disrupted, leading to drought.
01:18 In Europe, though, the cold and rain led to crop failures and widespread famine, disease
01:23 and economic turmoil.
01:25 The crisis also made waves in the world of art and literature.
01:30 The horrors are said to have inspired novels like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
01:35 And the use of light and color in Caspar David Friedrich's paintings captured the striking
01:40 skies and the darkness that shrouded the earth.
01:43 Catastrophe and creativity went hand in hand.
01:47 It's even been claimed that the eruption sparked the invention of the bicycle.
01:54 A theory that's unproven.
01:56 But we do know why the eruption brought cooler temperatures.
02:02 When a volcanic eruption injects ash, dust and gases into the atmosphere, into the stratosphere,
02:11 they form sulfate aerosols, which the earth's rotation helps spread around the globe.
02:19 Those aerosols have a cooling effect on the earth.
02:23 Crops fail.
02:25 Many animals can't find enough food and so on.
02:32 Indonesia is situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire.
02:36 Mount Tambora on Sumbawa is just one of more than a hundred active volcanoes there.
02:41 This caldera is also a legacy of the eruption of 1815.
02:45 Today the area around Mount Tambora is a national park.
02:49 It takes two days to reach the edge of the crater.
02:54 For many people in Indonesia, volcanoes have spiritual significance.
03:00 Swiss botanist Heinrich Zollinger witnessed that first hand.
03:05 In 1847 he climbed Tambora and penned the depiction of the eruption of the year 1815.
03:12 In his pamphlet, he described how local people warned him against climbing the volcano.
03:18 Wherever you set foot, fire erupts from the ground, evil spirits inhabit the mountain,
03:23 and those who want only to ascend in that region of hellish spirits are fated to suffer
03:27 storms, tempests and certain perdition.
03:32 Before the disaster, people didn't realize that Tambora might erupt.
03:38 Nobody knew that Mount Tambora was a volcano.
03:41 As for time immemorial, it had ejected neither ash nor lava, nor had rumblings revealed that
03:47 it held chambers of underground fire.
03:54 The word Tambora comes from the word Mbora.
03:57 Mbora means to disappear in Indonesian.
04:00 With a "ta" in front of it, as in Tambora, it means inviting you to disappear.
04:07 Let's disappear.
04:09 It's a place that's never lost its mystery.
04:13 I do not deny that I too felt the thrill of exhilaration as I became the first person
04:17 since the terrible eruption to set foot on the crest of this mountain, which had achieved
04:21 such sorrowful fame in history.
04:28 Scientists today are still studying the eruption of Mount Tambora.
04:33 Geologists, climate scientists and social scientists are all interested in the global
04:39 impact of the natural disaster that took place more than a century ago.
04:44 A disaster that, in essence, cut the volcano in half.
04:54 A number of volcanologists believe or subscribe to the theory that the summit of Mount Tambora
05:00 used to rise 4,000 meters above sea level.
05:07 And because of the 1815 eruption, it was essentially cut in half, and what remains is only 2,800
05:14 meters above sea level.
05:19 And it was a disaster for local people.
05:22 The plight of those people was a terrible thing to behold.
05:25 Strewn along the road were human remains, surrounding places where others had been buried
05:29 under lava and ash.
05:31 Villages were devastated, houses had collapsed and lay half-buried beneath the ash.
05:41 The 1815 eruption buried three kingdoms in the region of Mount Tambora under lava, buried
05:50 them without a trace.
05:55 During the excavations along the Kawinda Track, archaeologists have unearthed traces of community
06:01 life there from the year 1815, including rice fields, housing complexes and human skeletons.
06:16 The night sky on our ascent was peaceful, nothing like the evening of April 5, 1815,
06:22 when the first pillar of fire illuminated the night.
06:26 The inferno lasted seven days before it subsided.
06:30 Mount Tambora is what is called a stratovolcano.
06:34 It was formed by many geological layers and has a steep, narrow cone.
06:40 So is it possible it might erupt again one day?
06:45 Over the past 20 years, the region has seen many periods of increased seismic activity,
06:50 small tremors in the ground.
06:52 And the vents in the ground, called fumaroles, are emitting more volcanic gases and vapors
06:57 again.
06:58 Mount Tambora is under observation, like many other volcanoes in Indonesia.
07:03 Out of 127 active volcanoes in Indonesia, almost 80 percent of them, between 70 and
07:10 80 percent of them, have an observatory station.
07:13 We even have one volcano monitored by three observatory stations.
07:17 Each station has a seismograph.
07:20 They have seismographs and binoculars.
07:23 They measure the wind direction and the temperature.
07:26 They have thermocouple sensors to measure the temperature of fumaroles and sulfataras
07:30 and so forth.
07:33 Our journey has come to an end.
07:35 In 1847, when Heinrich Zollinger arrived back safely from his ascent, his return was seen
07:40 as a good omen.
07:42 It was thought the curse had been lifted and the evil spirits banished.
07:46 The hope was that the disaster of 1815 would never come again.
07:50 The celebratory gunfire, exultations and singing went on until dawn.
07:55 [speaking foreign language]
07:57 (water splashing)