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Mount Tambora Caldera |
The caldera or the deepest volcanic crater in the world is a caldera created by the violent eruption of Mount Tambora, in Indonesia in 1815.
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Mount Tambora eruption |
Mount Tambora is located on Sumbawa Island, West Nusa Tenggara province, an island in the southern part of Indonesia. This 4,300 meter high volcano erupted in 1815, creating one of the most powerful eruptions in history, which killed around 71,000 people.
The powerful eruption destroyed half of Mount Tambora's height and created a caldera, or volcanic crater, with a diameter of about 6 km from north to south and 7 km from east to west. The base of the caldera is rather narrow with a diameter of only about 4 m. The caldera has a depth of about 1,100 m. It is the deepest crater in the world ever created by a volcano.
The giant Tambora crater is now a tourist attraction that attracts many tourists, both domestic and foreign. To reach the bottom of the caldera, visitors must go down by using a rope, by passing a lot of difficult terrain.
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Mt. Tambora Caldera |
The base of the crater of Mount Tambora is a wide dry plain which is partly overgrown with grass. In the middle of the crater are two small volcanoes that have recently formed, known as 'Doro Afi Toi', meaning 'Small Volcano', in the Bima language (one of the tribes on Sumbawa Island), and Doro Afi Bou.
This small volcano began to form between 1850 and 1910, when there were several small eruptions inside the caldera. In 1967 and 2011 there were eruptions again, but they were very small and harmless. Inside the deepest volcanic crater in the world there is also a 1,200 m wide volcanic lake.