The recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean followed in the footsteps of the famous Krakatoa volcano’s explosive eruption, which killed a then-record 40,000 people, darkened the sky for miles, and created the loudest noise ever, heard around the world. Tsunami Aftermath — How Disasters Affect Societies discusses the non-physical effects of Krakatoa:
Well, the extraordinary thing that happened, specifically in Java and Sumatra, is that this event was immediately picked up by the religious leaders, who in those days were Muslims. The area was rapidly being converted from Hinduism to Islam. There were a lot of Arabs there who were priests or mullahs, and they said within a matter of days of the devastation, that this was clearly a sign from Allah — Allah, who was annoyed, specifically angered by the fact that the Javanese and the Sumatrans were allowing themselves to be ruled by white, western, infidel Dutch imperialists.“Rise up and kill them: is essentially what the mullahs said, and sure enough, within a matter of days, there was a degree of killing of Dutch soldiers and bureaucrats. Then the mullahs said, “No, no, no, don’t do this in a piecemeal fashion, do it in an organized fashion.” And sure enough over the next few years, careful planning went underway, triggered by Krakatoa, and five years later there was a massive rebellion, which was the beginning, one might say, of the end of Dutch rule in Java and Sumatra and the beginning of the creation of what is now the most populous Islamic state on Earth, Indonesia.