This case is comparable.
Sound is a mechanical wave, so how loud it is depends on the amplitude if you were to plot a sound signal on a graph.
The strength of sound is measured using the decibel scale.
But note: this is a logarithmic scale, so 4 is not double 2; it works in bases of 10: 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 ….
For example, 20 Decibels is 10 times stronger than 10 Decibels.
So here are examples :
10 Decibels ≈ This is how loud normal breathing is for humans
30 Decibels ≈ Whispering
70 Decibels ≈ Vacuum cleaner
100 Decibels ≈ Lawnmower (if you are standing close to it)
From 110 Decibels, people start to experience pain!
110 Decibels ≈ If you are 1 meter from a car horn
150 Decibels ≈ An airplane taking off when you are standing 25 meters away
This sound can instantly tear your eardrum!!!!!
You might already be wondering if it can get any worse, right....
But the LOUDEST EVER EXPERIENCED :
in the spring of 1883 on the volcanic island of Krakatoa, in Indonesia , an explosion occurred with a force of 200 TNT; the entire island (located between Java and Sumatra ) was completely wiped off the map.
How loud was this?
Well, when "sound" exceeds 194 Decibels, we are not really talking about pure "sound" (sound remains just a wave), because sound beyond the 194 Decibel limit begins to distort into a shock wave rather than truly pure sound.
310 Decibels
were
generated at the epicenter of the explosion.
Everyone within a radius of up to 64 kilometers of the volcano had their eardrums ruptured.
A pressure gauge 161 kilometers away registered 180 Decibels.
And these 180 Decibels were still enough to rupture your eardrums, knock the air out of your lungs (make your lungs explode) , and shatter the glass of buildings. If you were to survive it, you are 99% certain that you will be deaf for the rest of your life.
In reality, the volcanic explosion was heard as far as Perth (Australia); people described it as if it were a gunshot.
Also in Japan, India, parts of China, Korea….
And that is not all: as the sound traveled further, it became weaker and weaker, but the waves continued to travel around the entire world (at a very low frequency that the human ear no longer perceives) three times.
This was established according to our instruments at the time.
The small black cross on this map indicates the location of the volcano; Perth is marked on it.
The red circle represents the extent to which it was heard.
For some places, the pressure waves took several hours to reach that far, but they did eventually arrive.
And the noise was just one of the many problems:
- 120,000 people died.
- Tsunamis were created.
- People on boats also died quickly, and some boats with dead bodies washed ashore on the East African coast even a year later
. - The volcano spewed enormous amounts of ash into the atmosphere; this blocked sunlight and caused global temperatures to drop very rapidly by an average of 1.2°C.
It took 4 years for this to return to normal.
- The ash made the moon appear blue or sometimes green from Earth.
Incidentally, in 1815 there was another major volcanic eruption in Indonesia; it was not as loud, but it caused global temperatures to drop even more sharply. This is called the Year Without Summer; it was snowing in New York during the summer at that very moment.