SOUNDS: Back to school time is rapidly approaching, and the hallways of area schools will be echoing with voices, laughter and all kinds of sounds.

We would bet it can get pretty loud. While folks who hear it might complain that it sounds like the loudest noise in the world, we can assure you, it is not.

That distinction belonged to the eruption of Krakatoa, a volcano on Rakata Island in Indonesia, on May 20, 1883. According to audiology.org, the sounds of the eruption were estimated at 310 decibels.

It was heard some 3,000 miles away, still as loud as a gun blast.

Krakatoa produced the equivalent force of a 200-megaton bomb, and was four times as powerful as the largest ever human-produced thermonuclear explosion, the Tsar Bomba, in 1961. Krakatoa was also so loud that it circled the Earth four times before dissipating, the website noted.

Let’s give some other sound levels for comparison. A shotgun blast is 170 decibels; a baby crying or a car horn is about 110 decibels; a rock concert, 90 to 129; thunder, 120; a jackhammer, 130; an airplane taking off, 140; artillery fire, 150; a handgun, 166 decibels.

“For those near Krakatoa when it erupted, the sound of Krakatoa was not a sound at all. At 194 dB, acoustic vibration changes into a shock wave of a sonic boom. It’s unfathomable what likely happened to the humans and animals who were unfortunate enough to be near Krakatoa on that day,” the website stated.

The sperm whale — the loudest animal on the planet — can click as loud as 230 decibels, while the blue whale clicks at 188 decibels.

That’s noisy.