Verbeek and others believe that the final major Krakatoa eruption was a lateral blast , or pyroclastic surge ( similar to the catastrophic 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens ) . Around noon on 27 August 1883 , a rain of hot ash fell around Ketimbang ( now Katibung in Lampung Province ) in Sumatra . Approximately 1,000 people were killed in Sumatra ; there were no survivors from the 3,000 people located on the island of Sebesi . There are numerous documented reports of groups of human skeletons floating across the Indian Ocean on rafts of volcanic pumice and washing up on the east coast of Africa , up to a year after the eruption
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
1883 eruption of Krakatoa