In July, 1822, the waters of the Kunir River, one of the small rivers that flow down the slopes of the mountain, were observed to become hot and turbid. On the 8th of October, 1822, a terrific explosion was suddenly heard, accompanied by great earthquake shocks, when immense columns of hot water and boiling mud, mixed with burning brimstone, ashes, and lapilli, were thrown violently like a great waterspout from the opening in the mountain, with such enormous violence that great quantities fell across the River Tandoi, forty miles distant, while the valleys in the neighborhood were filled with a burning torrent. The rivers overflowed their banks and produced great destruction by floods of burning and boiling materials that washed away all the villages and cultivated fields in their path. During this eruption an extended area was covered with boiling mud in which were completely buried the bodies of many of those who perished.
So great was the violence with which the boiling mud, cinders, etc., were thrown out of the mountain that they entirely failed to fall on many of the villages in the immediate neighborhood, while the more remote villages were completely destroyed and buried out of sight under the mud.
The first eruption continued for nearly five hours. During several days following the eruption, torrents of rain fell, which produced floods in the rivers that covered the country far and wide with thick layers of mud.
Four days after the great eruption, that is, on the 12th of October, 1822, a second and still more violent eruption occurred, when immense quantities of hot mud were again thrown out of the crater. Great blocks of hardened lava called basalt were thrown a distance of seven miles from the volcano. This eruption was accompanied by a violent earthquake. It was during this eruption that a huge piece of the side of the cone was blown out, not unlike the case of the Val del Bove on Mt. Etna. The surrounding country was covered with mud. The immense quantity of materials thus thrown out of the side of the mountain produced changes in the courses of several rivers, thus causing great floods which in the single night of October 12th drowned 2,000 people. During these eruptions there were 114 villages destroyed, with a total loss of life of about 4,000.