Iceland, 8 June 1783. That morning the Laki volcano in the south of the island exploded. In the following days there were a total of five eruptions and up to February 1784 he suffered five more minor eruptions. As a result, eight cracks widened and lava began to flow. The lava flow was not interrupted until so many more months had passed.

In Iceland the crops were completely wasted, 75% of the cattle died and starvation took over the island. In the following months, 10,000 people died, representing about 25 per cent of Iceland ' s population at the time.

The volcano shed 14 kilometres of lava cubes, but solid emissions did not cause as much damage as gases, and not only on the volcanic island of the Atlantic.

Laki launched 100 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. The dense reddish fog reached both London and Paris in a few days, and was widespread throughout the northern hemisphere in July. That summer, ships in the UK had to stay in ports and some witnesses wrote that the sun had “the color of blood.” It is estimated that around 23,000 Britons died of volcanic cloud poisoning during this hot summer. A long and terribly cold winter followed, and the cold took another 8,000 Brits.

In the three years since the sun’s rays could not reach the surface with their previous force, the temperature in the northern hemisphere fell by an average of two degrees. The Mississippi River froze completely to New Orleans, so the ice reached the Gulf of Mexico. In 1784, extreme weather brought famine to Egypt and one in six people died. One of Japan’s worst famines of all time, the Tenmei famine, was just then.

The contemporaries did not associate the eruption of Laki with subsequent catastrophes, but current historians are increasingly aware of this connection. Five years later, the inhabitants of Paris were starving due to the poor weather and bad harvests of recent years. For this reason, the French Revolution broke out.

It is estimated that the eruption of the Laki volcano caused two million deaths, making it the deadliest eruption in history. However, since there were no planes, no airports had to be closed.