Iceland's 1783 Killer Cloud BBC Timewatch (The forgotten Disaster) 2007 -1
A little over
200 years ago, the eruption of a volcano in
Iceland sent a huge toxic cloud across
Western Europe. It was the greatest natural disaster to hit modern
Britain, killing many thousands - but it has been almost forgotten by history.
"Such multitudes are indisposed by fevers in this country that farmers have difficulty gathering their harvest, the labourers having been almost every day carried out of the field incapable of work and many die."
So wrote Hertfordshire poet
William Cowper in the summer of 1783.
Across the country, newspapers reported the presence of a thick smog, and a dull sun, "coloured like it has been soaked in blood".