How many people died in Thera volcanic eruption?

The answer, and I am sure it is going to annoy you, is "nobody knows for sure."  Well, at least nobody I have talked with : )

The reasons for this are several:

• The eruption happened around 1470 BC so it was a long time ago,


• The eruption eradicated all of the people in the immediate vicinity, so there was no-one left from the islands above the volcano to ask (of course, I would need a time machine to do this, but you get the point,)


• There were no bodies or other pieces of evidence left to measure from,


• The volcanic eruption caused widespread devastation across the Mediterranean coasts and islands (even destroyed the civilization on Crete, some 75 miles away,)


• This erruption may have caused a famine and starvation in Egypt,


• This eruption, if other eruptions are any indicator, may have disrupted weather patterns across the globe for a while, ruining crops and causing worldwide food shortages,


• We have never had a volcano that big explode again to measure against.

So, I am sorry I cannot be more specific than to say "a lot," but records aren't the greatest from the era and a lot of people didn't know a volcano had even erupted and was causing the damage.  Think about it: anyone close enough to see the volcano erupt was dead!