Did any Europeans come to Indonesia's aid and, if so, how fast did it take them to get there?
Who Asked: Bogmire
The Book: Black Song’s Curse
Answer: It is interesting that you chose this particular disaster to ask about media coverage. Krakatoa was actually the first disaster to affect the world after the invention of the telegraph, which means that the world learned about the disaster within minutes of its occurrence.
In fact, though the main explosion—where the crater sank, filled with water, and blew the entire island to smithereens—happened on August 27, 1883, a reporter for Lloyds of London had actually been following the story since May, when The Times reported, “Lloyd’s Agent in Batavia, under the date of May 23 telegraphs, ‘Strong Volcanic Eruption, Krakatowa Island, Sunda Straits.”
The reason the Lloyds agent was there, of course, was because Java and the surrounding area (including Krakatoa) formed the core of the Dutch East Indies (which means they were exploiting the native peoples). The area was important to the Netherlands as the center for coffee growing, and hence economically important to the entire world.
When Krakatoa blew, its effects were felt around the world, including raising tides in Australia and a dust cloud that reached the United States by October, 1883. Winchester says, “And in learning of these places and the terrible events that occurred there, so the world’s people suddenly became part of a new brotherhood of knowledge&$151in a sense it was that day in August 1883 that the modern phenomenon known as the ‘Global Village’ was born.”
There was a relief effort, headed up by the Dutch (Indonesia was a Dutch colony, after all), though it was not extensively recorded. One newspaper reports that by September 29, the relief fund had reached 657,505 guilders (half from the Netherlands, the other half from Singapore, London, Petang and the East Indes.) Simkin says, “Although we have found very little information on this aspect of the eruption, the relief effort must have been enormous: families to relocate, lighthouses and ports to re-build, and one report mentioned that 8,000 cases of petroleum had been dispatched to Bantam for the purpose of burning corpses.”
There is much more to the story than I have room to include here, including how the explosion may have led to the rebellion of the Indonesians against the Dutch. This would make a great setting for a historical novel.
Hope this helps!
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Amber
Web Resources
Print Resources
- Krakatoa: the Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester
- Krakatau 1883 by Tom Simkin