[volcano roaring] [birds chirping] [dramatic music] [birds chirping] [somber vocalizing music] [dramatic trumpet music] [wind humming] - "We beheld the seat of Pele's dreadful rain.

We stood on the edge of a tremendous crater.

This was once filled with liquid fire."

So wrote the first Westerners known to have visited this great volcanic crater in 1828, three missionaries who climbed to the top of this mountain built by the Hawaiian goddess, Pele, the goddess of fire.

It's one of two volcanoes which gave birth to the island of Maui.

Hi, I'm George Page for Nature.

Hawaiians named this place Haleakala, House of the Sun.

Today, it's an awesome relic of the power of volcanoes to build and to destroy, especially here in the Pacific.

10,000 feet above sea level, Haleakala plunges another 19,000 feet into the sea, to the floor of the Pacific Ocean, where it began erupting about a million years ago.

After thousands of years, it eventually burst through the ocean surface and continued erupting and building until about 984 A.D.

There's no written account of Haleakala's last eruption, but scientists estimate it was about 200 years ago, but a hundred years later, in 1883, the modern scientific age was dawning.

Worldwide communication systems were in place, and there's no doubt about what happened some 7,000 miles south and west of Haleakala, across the Pacific.

[volcano roaring] May 1883, a dormant volcano on a remote island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra began a series of violent eruptions.

It belts out vast clouds of ash that obscured the sun.

The explosions were heard 70 miles away.

[volcano roaring] Toward the end of May, the fireworks seemed to have died down a little, though ships passing through the straits at night could see the glow of molten lava in the crater.

[lava sizzling] [volcano rumbling] [volcano rumbling continues] [volcano rumbling continues] Large-scale eruptions began again in mid-June.

This time they were even more violent.

Earth tremors were felt in many parts of Java and Sumatra.

The crater where the explosions had begun was blown away, but now there were at least 10 others belting out steam and pumice dust.

It went so high that the ash fell on villages 300 miles away.

[volcano rumbling] The climax came on August 27th, 1883 with an explosion equal to 3,000 atom bombs.

The island of Krakatoa disappeared with a bang that was heard as far away as Sri Lanka and Australia.

[volcano rumbling] It was the loudest noise the world had ever known.

[volcano roaring] [waves crashing] Amazingly, the actual explosion killed very few people.

The havoc was caused by the seismic waves, called tsunamis, that followed.

Some were 100 feet high.

[waves crashing] [waves crashing continues] [waves crashing continues] [waves crashing continues] [waves crashing continues] [waves crashing continues] [waves crashing continues] The tsunamis ripped over low-lying areas, wiping out mainland towns and villages, including this little port of Anyer.

[soft somber music] It's estimated that 36,000 people throughout the area died.

Engravings from the time show ships sailing through seas of corpses.

This amazing series of photographs taken a few days later on the mainland show scenes reminiscent of Hiroshima.

All that remains of a railway and an engine.

The giant waves flattened everything, including a hotel and a fort.

A Dutch gunboat was struck by a series of 90-foot waves and carried over a mile into the jungle.

After the big bang, there was one minor explosion and then silence.

The dust that rose 50 miles high circle the Earth, causing spectacular sunsets for years afterwards.

Half the island of Krakatoa had disappeared, much of it into the upper atmosphere.

[waters rushing] For a hundred miles around, floodwaters wiped the slate clean.

Nature could have a fresh start.

A century after the floodwaters drained away is an ideal time to see what sort of job nature has done of repairing the damage.

The flood flattened huge areas of jungle and destroyed countless villages.

As for the wildlife there, only those lucky enough to be isolated on high ground survived.

[water rippling] [waves crashing] Today, Java, Indonesia is the most populated island in the world.

At its northwest tip is an area of jungle where no one now lives, Ujung Kulon, 25 miles from Krakatoa.

The reason no one lives there is that Krakatoa's tidal waves wiped them out.

They have never returned.

[wind humming] Ujung Kulon is a national park now and the last home of the Javan rhino, the rarest large animal on earth.

In 100 years, the jungle has returned so completely that the only way to penetrate the park is along one of its few rivers.

[suspenseful music] This one is called the Cigenter.

[suspenseful music] [birds chirping] To travel along the Cigenter's narrow five-mile course is like making a voyage back to prehistoric time.

[suspenseful music] [mellow flute music] [birds twittering] [suspenseful music] [pensive music] [birds twittering] [suspenseful music] [monkey thuds] [suspenseful music] [insects chirping] [birds twittering] [suspenseful music] [birds twittering] [suspenseful music] [pensive flute music] [birds twittering] [suspenseful music] [birds twittering] [pensive music] [suspenseful music] [pensive music] When the great tsunamis came bursting over Ujung Kulon in August 1883, some Javan rhino must have been caught above flood level.

That a few of their descendants are living there today is due to the human side of the tragedy, the fact that Ujung Kulon has never been resettled since the disaster.

[suspenseful music] [birds twittering] [suspenseful music] [birds twittering] [rhino snorts] Today, the jungle is so lush that it's hard to believe Ujung Kulon was inundated by waves of saltwater 50 feet high.

The secret of its complete rehabilitation lies largely in its immense rainfall, over 100 inches a year.

[rain pouring] [thunder rumbling] [rain pouring] [thunder rumbling] [rain pouring] The rains are followed by six months of sunshine.

In such a climate, almost anything will grow.

[birds chirping] When the rains end in April, it's an immediate signal for the birds to begin nesting.

These are blue-throated bee-eaters.

[birds chirping] The olive-backed sunbird feeds its young in its complicated hanging nest.

[birds chirping] A female Philippine glossy starling looks for a nest hole.

A pair of brown-capped woodpeckers has already found one, though a little more wood carving is needed.

[birds chirping] [birds chirping continues] A young red-headed flowerpecker.

[birds chirping] An ashy woodswallow feeds its young after they've left the nest.

[birds whistling] The yellow-bellied prinia arrives to supply its young, and removes a dropping from the nest.

[birds chirping] That's a gray-cheeked bulbul.

[birds chirping] The open banks of the little river offer insect-eating birds an abundance of food.

The mud flats of the Cigenter River are home to thousands of fiddler crabs and the hunting ground for those who find crab a delicacy.

The waving of the one big claw is territorial behavior.

The aim is to intimidate rivals.

[water burbling] The river monitor, however, is plainly not intimidated.

[birds chirping] [birds chirping continues] Lowering its front ramp, a box terrapin prepares to go hunting.

Just as there are left-handed and right-handed boxers, so there are southpaw crabs as well as those who lead normally with their left.

The other claw is minute by comparison and used largely for feeding.

Here are two left-handers locked in battle.

Here, the contest is between the right- and the left-hander.

The tidal areas are also the home of the mudskipper, a little fish that hasn't quite made up its mind whether to live on land or in water.

Every few minutes, it must dip itself in water to breathe.

The raised dorsal fin is a threat to rivals that insist on trespassing.

[birds chirping] The sudden appearance of the monitor reveals that mudskippers skip equally well on water.

[taut buzzing music] [taut buzzing music continues] [taut buzzing music continues] The gray mud along the banks contains a good deal of ash from Krakatoa's hundred-year-old explosion.

Broken down volcanic soils have encouraged growth of almost prehistoric lushness.

That prehistoric feeling is everywhere.

[tense shrill music] [suspenseful music] [suspenseful music continues] [tense shrill music] [mellow music] [suspenseful music] [birds chirping] [suspenseful music] [suspenseful music continues] [suspenseful music continues] [suspenseful music continues] [suspenseful music continues] The huge crocodiles of the Cigenter River have a special quality of menace.

This monster is about to dispute territory with a rival.

It's an estuarine crocodile, the fiercest and most aggressive of its kind.

[water splashing] It's hard to imagine now that 100 years ago, any vegetation that survived here was buried under inches and often feet of gray volcanic dust.

The somber green of the regrown jungle is a perfect setting for a Javan kingfisher's jeweled wings.

[crickets chirping] [wings flapping] But there's one fish in the Cigenter River that has learned to outwit the kingfisher in an amazing way.

This little fish, a relative of the gobies, swims upside down and maneuvers a leaf with its ventral fins as a portable hide.

So long as it stays below the leaf, the kingfisher can't spot it.

Sometimes it makes the leaf move against the current.

So far, the river's many species of fish-eating birds haven't been smart enough to work this out.

Before this was filmed, the leaf-hiding behavior was not known to science.

It's possibly the first case on record of a tool-using fish.

[water burbling] [water burbling continues] Of course, the ruse isn't so successful against predatory fish, like this spotted puffer.

To discourage the puffer, the fish blows up its gills to make itself look bigger.

It's a trick the puffer should understand very well.

It's exactly how it defends itself against enemies.

[tense music] Seven species of kingfisher earn their living along the Cigenter.

This one is called the rufous-backed.

[bird twittering] [bird ruffling] [birds chirping] [wings flapping] This time, a catch.

The victim obviously didn't know the leaf trick.

[birds chirping] [bird whistling] The air is abuzz with insects, and the river busy with those who feed on them, an unusual pastime for a heron.

There are hungry mouths waiting for those insects which fall into the water.

Some of them have very strange mouths.

The needlefish's mouth is more of a flap on top of a snipe-like bill.

Though they may look like a swarm of insects, in fact, these fish are feeding on a cloud of crab larvae.

[water burbling] [birds chirping] [birds chirping continues] Now, this is an insect and a big one, too.

It's the caterpillar of the atlas moth, the largest of the silk moth family.

[birds twittering] The four-inch-long pupa of an atlas moth hangs over the river.

The giant moth maturing inside will wait for night before it emerges from its four-month period of changing from the caterpillar.

[somber music] [gentle music] [gentle music continues] [gentle music continues] Against the moon, the snake's head pattern on the wingtip shows up to great effect.

It's to be a device to ward off predators.

[gentle music] [gentle music continues] When the sun comes up, the crab larvae who escaped the fish shoals emerge on the sand at the river's mouth.

[birds twittering] [insects chirping] [waves lapping] [crickets chirping] The atlas moth that hatched in the night is still drying its wings.

At dawn, banteng, the last descendants of the Javan wild ox, come to graze on the one open meadow at the river's mouth.

Some of their ancestors, too, were spared by Krakatoa's floods.

A wild pig strolls behind the banteng cow.

The bulls are almost black, with white leggings.

At dawn, too, the fruit bats return to roost after a night spent raiding the wild fig trees in the jungle.

Their wings are three feet across.

Their sharp, foxy faces and red heads give them their nickname: flying fox.

That's a female coming in to land with young at her breast.

Motherhood doesn't seem to give her priority in landing rights.

She has to force a rival off the branch.

Life along the river wakes up.

Insects are early risers.

The river is a dangerous place for insects.

Here, you can literally be shot down even you're a caterpillar hanging from a thread 10 feet above the surface.

[fish squirts] [birds chirping] The archerfish shoots drops of water at its victims using a groove in the upper part of its mouth as a gun barrel.

Pressure from the gills propels the water drops like bullets.

[fish squirts] Sometimes it attacks more directly.

Big insects occasionally require a bombardment.

[fish squirting] [water burbling] [fish squirting] And finally, the perfect kill.

[fish squirting] [birds chirping] [bird whistling] Others exploit the archer's skill.

The bigger fish is hoping to retrieve an insect before the archerfish can reach it.

[birds chirping] These are some of the wonders of Ujung Kulon, the national park which Krakatoa accidentally first created and then preserved.

Ujung Kulon equally accidentally repays the debt.

These nipa fruit seeds will find their way to the mouth of the Cigenter River.

In a short time, they'll reach the sea where a prevailing southerly wind and current will greet them.

And due north, 25 miles away, a new Krakatoa rises from the sea to await their arrival.

[volcano rumbling] In 1928, a new Krakatoa suddenly emerged from the sea, right in the center of the submarine crater left by the great explosion of 1883.

[waves crashing] Anak Krakatoa, the son of Krakatoa, is now over 1,000 feet high and showing every sign of following its parent's fiery example.

The entire island you're looking at now has been created by the new Krakatoa in just over 50 years.

[wind humming] Anak Krakatoa still has a long way to go before it fills the gap left by its famous father.

Anak Krakatoa is in the center.

The sea area between the other two islands was the land that disappeared in the big bang.

The map shows Krakatoa and its islands before the great eruption.

The main island was over seven miles long.

The eruption began in the crater Perboewetan.

[volcano rumbling] This is all that remained.

The island top left increased in size due to deposits of volcanic ash.

Anak Krakatoa has risen approximately where the 1883 eruption began.

[volcano rumbling] [wind humming] In the foreground is Rakata, the largest remaining piece of the old Krakatoa.

The eruptions almost certainly killed all life there, so the forests are the result of 100 years growth.

How is life doing on the new Krakatoa?

This barren landscape is by no means all the story.

Volcanoes that emerge from the ocean are perfect laboratories in which to study how life takes a grip in apparently sterile conditions.

[bright music] [bright music crescendos] [bright music continues] At first come the seeds borne on the wind.

Their mission is to find a niche with soil in which they have at least some chance of germination in what is apparently a slag heap.

[bright music] For the first few years, the volcanic debris is practically sterile, and then wind, rain, and sun begin to break it down into fertile soil.

[bright music] The seeds that took root here are quite likely to have been a wind-borne gift from Ujung Kulon, just across the street.

[bright music] The first scientist who visited Krakatoa one year after the explosion, in 1884, found only one thing, a spider.

Spiders, too, travel on the wind by trailing gossamer threads.

This is one of several species that have already colonized Anak Krakatoa.

The second route by which colonists reach newly created islands is the sea.

Once again, Ujung Kulon is the nearest and most likely mainland from which these visitors set sail.

[mellow music] [effervescent music] The seed pod which we saw earlier leaving the mouth of the Cigenter River may well have made landfall on the black volcanic sand of Anak Krakatoa's beach.

[effervescent music] [waves crashing] The currents as well as wind favor such colonization for six months of the year.

[waves lapping] These pandanus seeds have begun sprouting just above the tide line, a risky tactic that sometimes pays off, as this fully grown pandanus tree at the sea's edge demonstrates.

[waves lapping] Snakes are excellent swimmers, though it's probable that this python made the voyage on a drifting tree trunk.

Ghost crabs, no problem about their arrival on Anak Krakatoa.

The larvae drift in the plankton swarms.

The water monitor is at home on land or sea.

With plentiful supplies of ghost crabs, it has no food problems on arrival.

[waves lapping] [waves lapping continues] Life on Anak Krakatoa is largely confined to the eastern tip.

This is the only place where, in 50 years, vegetation has really established itself, but then it's had an uphill fight.

The volcano has been erupting on and off ever since his rebirth.

Lava and pumice ash continually bar further progress.

Nevertheless, inside this miniature forest, there's a surprisingly varied flora, including barringtonias, pandanus, and mature casuarina trees.

On the forest floor grows a quite rich variety of mosses, grasses, ferns, and some flowering plants, like this convolvulus.

[flies buzzing] [volcano rumbling] Rakata, part of the original Krakatoa, is a far lusher island, but then it's had twice the time for colonization and regrowth, and this hasn't been affected by constant eruptions.

Nevertheless, it's a pretty good model of what Anak Krakatoa may become, given time.

[wind humming] The steep face down, which the sea eagle is soaring is where the great volcano collapsed into its own seabed crater.

Even here, large trees have taken root.

[eagle squawking] Rakata island fascinates scientists because it shows what nature can do from a standing start in exactly 100 years.

A scientist who visited Rakata in 1920, 37 years after the great eruption, recorded 573 species of animals, from sea eagles, to beetles, to fruit bats.

[eagle squawking] These giant fig trees give some idea of what the forest of Anak Krakatoa could become in another 50 years.

[waves lapping] Krakatoa's buried hundred-year fauna includes tokay geckos, and there are land crabs for the Monica lizards to feed on.

[leaves rustling] This well-fed python is probably feeding on rats.

They found their way to Rakata some years ago.

[waves lapping] Whether Anak Krakatoa settles down to encourage a similar diversity of flora and fauna depends to some extent on its uncertain temperament.

[pensive music] [waves lapping] [volcano rumbling] On now peaceful Rakata, we get a view of the Eden Anak Krakatoa could become.

[pensive music] [somber music] [somber music continues] Great fig trees like this 80-year-old specimen may have to wait a long time before they get their chance on the restless new volcano.

[volcano rumbling] [volcano rumbling continues] [waves lapping] [birds twittering] [bird squeaking] Ants were one of the first insects to move in on Rakata after the big eruption.

During the first phase of recolonization by grasses, they were exceedingly numerous and mostly open savannah species.

With the rapid development of tropical forests, the numbers dropped and woodland species like these leaf ants predominated.

The workers here are sticking the leaves together to form a nest.

[effervescent music] [effervescent music continues] Here, they're using the secretion from one of their larvae as if it were a tube of glue.

[effervescent music] [somber music] In 100 years, life has returned to Rakata in sufficient variety for different species to form complicated and useful relationships.

These tree termite nests are a case in point.

This hole wasn't made by termites, but by a far more glamorous creature.

No one could call termites glamorous.

They are, however, members of a marvelously organized community.

These workers are exuding cement, which they combine with their saliva to build up a nest as hard as concrete.

[bright music] [bright music continues] The small, transparent insects are the young, which emerged from the egg fully formed.

Termites dispense with the larva formed.

[bright music] All these workers are sterile females, so are the heavily armed soldiers.

The sole purpose of every member is simply to service their four-inch-long queen, hidden deep in the center of the nest, in the egg-laying chamber.

Termites are used to sharing their nest with other creatures.

Ground-nesting termites often play host to mongooses and snakes.

With tree termites, the guest is not infrequently a bird.

Many kingfishers tunnel into banks to make their nests.

On Rakata, the crumbly volcanic soil is often unsuitable for tunneling, but the hard-packed cement of a tree termite nest makes an excellent alternative.

The collared kingfisher's young are nearly ready to fly.

She's feeding them on ghost crabs.

[young birds squeaking] [wind humming] [winds flapping] The interesting thing about the kingfisher's family is that, though the visiting parent seems to have no control over which of her children begs at the nest hole, all seem to get their fair shares.

No one chick has grown at the expense of the others, so there must be some system of rotation, perhaps based on the time it takes to digest the last meal.

[birds grunting and squeaking] Sometimes the parents bring a golden skink, and whoever gets that to swallow isn't going to be ready for a second helping for quite some time.

[skink squeaking] The skink lost its tail in the attempt to avoid capture.

[skink grunting] The captor seems to be wondering whether to swallow the tail there and then, or deliver it to its young in the nest.

Even while these scenes were being filmed, Anak Krakatoa, two miles away, was once again flexing its muscles.

[volcano rumbling] [volcano rumbling continues] [birds chirping] [volcano rumbling] [birds chirping] At the end of three weeks, the young collared kingfishers are ready to leave the nest.

[birds squeaking] [birds chirping] Parental duties, however, are not over yet.

A young bird perches on a lump of Krakatoa's lava while the parent bird brings it yet another ghost crab.

[waves lapping] As for the termites, they have the nest all to themselves once more.

Now it's possible to see how both sides have benefited from the association.

Moving debris shows how the termites have steadily been feeding on and clearing up the droppings and scraps of food left by the young birds.

While termites clear up below, ants forage on the surface.

As if getting ready for the centennial, Anak Krakatoa was particularly active during the early 1980s.

It was a busy time for several of Indonesia's approximately 1,000 volcanoes.

In 1982, the dust from two other eruptions almost fatally stopped the engines of two Boeing 747s at over 20,000 feet.

[volcano rumbling] [volcano rumbling continues] Perhaps the most eerie place from which to observe these pyrotechnics is the sea-filled center of what was once Krakatoa Island.

The rocks in the foreground stand up like a jagged tooth from the broken jaw of Krakatoa's old crater.

Below is the empty magma chamber into which the sea rushed to become super-heated steam, and into which most of Krakatoa eventually collapsed, causing the big final explosion.

[ominous underwater buzzing] The reefs of Krakatoa are especially rich.

Their scientific importance is that they can be dated precisely.

If there's one thing that coral polyps detest, it's being buried in silt.

Those reefs that weren't utterly destroyed by the 1883 eruption were buried under up to 90 feet of ash.

Today, Krakatoa's reefs are as rich in marine life as anywhere in the tropics.

The birthdate of their corals is known almost to the hour.

[pensive music] [pensive music continues] [pensive music continues] [pensive music continues] The Indonesian authorities are anxious to extend the boundaries of the Ujung Kulon National Park, to include the marine habitats around Krakatoa and its nearby islands.

[pensive music] [water splashing] The tuna chase the little fish to the surface and the frigate birds home in on the small fry in feeding frenzy.

[waves lapping] [waves lapping continues] [volcano rumbling] Just across the Sunda Strait, Ujung Kulon luxuriates in its present security from human interference.

From the air, it's easy to see how 50-foot seismic waves overran it.

Let's hope it never happens again, because Ujung Kulon is the very last sanctuary of one of the rarest animals on earth.

[waves lapping] Tracks are all that is usually seen of them.

The animals have only been filmed once before and then very briefly, in black and white.

This is the first time they've been captured at length on color film.

The jungle of Ujung Kulon is so dense that wildlife cameraman Dieter Plage decided his only chance was along the banks of the Cigenter River.

[bird chirping] Even so, it took six months before he succeeded.

[wings flapping] [leaves rustling] [birds twittering] [birds twittering continues] [birds twittering continues] There were occasional tantalizing glimpses, usually when the great animal was crossing the river before disappearing into the jungle again.

[birds twittering] Then suddenly, one day, Plage was face-to-face with a big bull Javan rhino, one of perhaps 50 of these animals left on earth, and all of them in Ujung Kulon.

In this species, only the bulls have prominent horns.

[birds twittering] Nearby was a cow.

[birds twittering] The triangular plate of hide at the neck is one of the things that distinguishes the Javan from other Asian rhino.

[birds twittering] The female suddenly moves off toward the male, who had retreated somewhere into the jungle.

[birds twittering] The male sprays the vegetation so the female will follow him.

[birds twittering] And there's the male again, slightly more wary this time.

[birds twittering] [birds twittering continues] [birds twittering continues] He settled down again, giving an opportunity for a unique focus.

[leaves rustling] He's joined by the female.

[birds twittering] Soon, she calmly starts to feed.

[leaves rustling] [birds twittering] The prehensile upper lip reaches out to seize the vegetation.

[birds twittering] Ujung Kulon had revealed its greatest mystery, far more generously than Dieter Plage could have ever hoped.

The rhinos never again gave a chance like this.

They simply vanished into the forest.

[birds twittering] [leaves rustling] [birds twittering] August the 27th, 1883 was the day that shook the world and destroyed so much life and property.

It was also the day that isolated and helped to preserve this remarkable wilderness area.

But with the son of Krakatoa fulminating only 25 miles away, no one can be sure of its future.

[birds twittering] [ominous rumbling] [birds twittering] [somber music] [birds twittering] Mount Saint Helens, Mauna Loa, 100 miles from here on the big island of Hawaii, just two of our planet's most famous active volcanoes.

Scientists have made great progress in predicting volcanic activity, but it's not yet a perfect science.

Geologists classify this great volcano on Maui as dormant, not extinct, like son of Krakatoa in Indonesia.

It could erupt again.

I'm George Page for Nature.

[volcano rumbling] [bird screeching] [taut percussive music] [birds twittering] [mellow music] [taut percussive music] [taut percussive music continues] [taut percussive music continues] [taut percussive music continues] [taut mellow music] [taut percussive music continues] [birds chirping] [effervescent music] [taut percussive music] [leaves rustling] [taut percussive music] [mellow music]