I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

Despite its name, only 45% of the London Underground is underground in tunnels, the rest is in the outer environs of London on the surface.

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Not quite. It was a big one, but certainly not the loudest sound ever heard on earth. Over it's billions of years there have been many much louder. The meteorite slamming into modern day Mexico that took out the dinosaurs would have been significantly louder.

But if we take historically, then there are other contenders. A big one would be the volcanic eruption that blew up the aegean island of Santorini, known as Thera back then during the Minoan civilisation(around 1500 BC). A larger bang than Krakatoa that blew the island apart and almost certainly informed the story of Atlantis*. It also caused a massive tsunami that hit the Greek mainland and heavily damaged the Minoan civilisation. Going further back into human prehistory around 60,000 BC there was also the Toba event, another volcanic eruption much larger again and not too far from Krakatoa, which led to "nuclear winter" conditions around the globe and reduced the human population, to the degree it caused a genetic bottleneck that was can see traces of today.


*Plato was clearly spinning an allegorical yarn, but he could certainly have been inspired by the Thera/Santorini and her destruction. He described the "Atlanteans" as a powerful seafaring race with cool technology, who were antagonists to the earliest proto Greeks, which would describe the Minoans. Atlantis he describes as a ring of land with a narrow entrance that led to an inward sea and docks for their great ships on a central island. Now he exaggerates the scales, but before it blew up Thera/Santorini fits that description. It was a ring of mountain with a small entrance into a safe harbour and a central island.



It also fits his description of a rapid cataclysmic end to Atlantis when Thera blew her top and billions of tonnes of water flooded into the volcanic cauldron. He also notes that the soil was made of three colours; black, red and yellow, which if you ever visit Santorini today you will see that in exposed ground.

Interestingly, like Pompeii there is a large chunk of buildings and artefacts under the volcanic ash of the event. They're are extremely sophisticated for the time. Paved streets, two storey houses with hot and cold running water and drainage. Far in advance of the nascent Greek mainlanders.



Unlike Pompeii, no bodies. It looks like the people got away in time warned by ominous rumblings and quakes. Or maybe they are there, still buried, huddled in a group waiting for rescue.