Qualla: Makian https://qualla.com/makian en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/b/4/9/makian-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Makian https://qualla.com/makian Makian: Introduction https://qualla.com/makian/ Photo credit edited by M.Minderhoud, Public domain. In July 1988, the entire population of Makian Island received an order that their ancestors had heard before: leave everything and go. The volcano was waking up. Roughly fifteen thousand people evacuated from a nearly circular island just ten kilometers wide, abandoning homes built on the fertile lower slopes of Mount Kie Besi, a stratovolcano that rises 1,357 meters from the sea. They were not the first to flee, and the island's history suggests they will not be the last.

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Image: edited by M.Minderhoud | Public domain

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/b/4/9/makian-wp/wb49-makian-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Makian: A Crater and a Lake https://qualla.com/makian/ Photo credit A. Rabin, CC BY 2.0. Seen from above, Makian is strikingly geometric: an almost perfect circle of green rising from the Halmahera Sea. The summit is crowned by a 1.5-kilometer-wide crater with a small lake tucked into its northeastern corner. Four parasitic cones bulge from the western slopes, eviden...

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Image: A. Rabin | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/b/4/9/makian-wp/wb49-makian-a-crater-and-a-lake.mp3 0:06 2 full Makian: The Violence Beneath https://qualla.com/makian/ Photo credit Sadalmelik, CC BY-SA 3.0. Makian's eruptions are infrequent but catastrophic. The first recorded eruption dates to the 1550s. Three subsequent eruptions, on July 19, 1646, September 22, 1760, and December 28, 1861, each rated 4 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, a classification indicating cataclysmic eve...

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Image: Sadalmelik | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/b/4/9/makian-wp/wb49-makian-the-violence-beneath.mp3 0:06 3 full Makian: Two Tongues, One Island https://qualla.com/makian/ Photo credit Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0. Makian's linguistic geography mirrors a fault line far older than its volcanic ones. The island is split between two entirely unrelated languages. On the eastern half, people speak Taba, an Austronesian language whose relatives span from Madagascar to Easter Island. On the wester...

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Image: Unknown author | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/b/4/9/makian-wp/wb49-makian-two-tongues-one-island.mp3 0:06 4 full Makian: Living on Borrowed Time https://qualla.com/makian/ Photo credit Photo by Mark Richards, CC BY-SA 3.0. Why do people stay on an island that has tried to kill them repeatedly? The answer is rooted in the same geology that makes Makian dangerous. Volcanic soil is extraordinarily fertile, and the island's warm equatorial climate and heavy monsoon rainfall turn those slopes into produ...

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Image: Photo by Mark Richards | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/b/4/9/makian-wp/wb49-makian-living-on-borrowed-time.mp3 0:06 5 full