10 catastrophes in the history of mankind. The worst disasters in the world

17.04.2013

Natural disasters unpredictable, destructive, unstoppable. Perhaps that is why humanity fears them the most. We offer you the top rating in history, they claimed a huge number of lives.

10. The collapse of the Banqiao Dam, 1975

The dam was built to contain the effects of about 12 inches of precipitation daily. However, in August 1975 it became clear that this was not enough. As a result of the collision of cyclones, Typhoon Nina brought with it heavy rains - 7.46 inches per hour, which means 41.7 inches daily. In addition, due to clogging, the dam could no longer fulfill its role. In a few days, 15.738 billion tons of water broke through it, which swept through the surrounding area in a deadly wave. More than 231,000 people died.

9. Earthquake in Haiyan, China, 1920

As a result of the earthquake, which is on the 9th line in the top ranking deadliest natural disasters in history, affected 7 provinces of China. In the Hainan region alone, 73,000 people died, and more than 200,000 people died nationwide. Tremors continued for the next three years. It caused landslides and large ground cracks. The earthquake turned out to be so strong that some rivers changed course, in some natural dams appeared.

8. Tangshan Earthquake, 1976

It happened on July 28, 1976 and is called the strongest earthquake of the 20th century. The epicenter was the city of Tangshan, located in the province of Hebei, China. From a densely populated, large industrial city, almost nothing remained in 10 seconds. The number of victims is about 220,000.

7. Antakya (Antioch) earthquake, 565

Despite the small number of details that have survived to this day, earthquake was one of the most devastating and claimed more than 250,000 lives and brought enormous damage to the economy.

6. Earthquake in the Indian Ocean / tsunami, 2004

It happened on December 24, 2004, just in time for Christmas. The epicenter was off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and Thailand were most severely affected. The second earthquake in history of magnitude 9.1 -9.3. it has been the cause of a number of other earthquakes around the globe, such as in Alaska. It also triggered a deadly tsunami. More than 225,000 people died.

5. Indian cyclone, 1839

In 1839, an extremely large cyclone came to India. On November 25, a storm nearly destroyed the city of Coringa. He destroyed literally everything he came into contact with. 2,000 ships that were parked in the port have been swept off the face of the earth. The city was not restored. The storm surges it attracted killed over 300,000 people.

4. Cyclone Bola, 1970

After Cyclone Bola swept through the lands of Pakistan, more than half of the arable land was polluted and spoiled, a small part of the rice and grains were saved, but famine was no longer avoided. In addition, about 500,000 people died from the heavy rains and floods that it caused. Wind force -115 meters per hour, hurricane - category 3.

3. Shaanxi earthquake, 1556

The most destructive earthquake in history happened on February 14, 1556 in China. Its epicenter was in the Wei River valley and about 97 provinces were affected as a result. Buildings were destroyed, half of the people living in them were killed. According to some reports, 60% of the population of Huasqian province died. A total of 830,000 people died. The tremors continued for another six months.

2. Flooding of the Yellow River, 1887

The Yellow River in China is extremely prone to flooding and overflowing. In 1887, this led to the flooding of 50,000 square miles around. According to some reports, the flood claimed the lives of 900,000 - 2,000,000 people. Farmers, knowing the characteristics of the river, built dams that saved them from the annual floods, but in that year, the water swept away the farmers and their homes.

1. Flood of central China, 1931

According to statistics, the flood that occurred in 1931 was scariest in history. After a long drought, 7 cyclones came to China at once, bringing hundreds of liters of rain with them. As a result, three rivers burst their banks. The flood killed 4 million people.

Sometimes it is rather difficult to assess the scale of a particular global catastrophe, because the consequences of some of them can manifest themselves many years after the incident itself.

In this article, we will present the 10 worst disasters in the world that were not caused by purposeful actions. Among them are incidents that occurred on the water, in the air, and on the ground.

Fukushima accident

The catastrophe that occurred on March 11, 2011, simultaneously combines the features of man-made and natural disasters. A massive magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a tsunami caused the Daiichi nuclear plant's power supply to fail, shutting down the cooling process for the nuclear fuel reactors.

In addition to the monstrous destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami, this incident led to serious radioactive contamination of the territory and water area. In addition, the Japanese authorities had to evacuate more than two hundred thousand people because of the high likelihood of serious illness due to exposure to severe radioactive exposure. The combination of all these consequences gives the Fukushima accident the right to be called one of the worst disasters in the world in the twenty-first century.

The total damage from the accident is estimated at $100 billion. This amount includes the costs of eliminating the consequences and paying compensation. But at the same time, we must not forget that work to eliminate the consequences of the disaster is still ongoing, which accordingly increases this amount.

In 2013, the Fukushima nuclear power plant was officially closed, and only works to eliminate the consequences of the accident are being carried out on its territory. Experts believe that it will take at least forty years to put the building and the contaminated area in order.

The consequences of the Fukushima accident are a reassessment of safety measures in nuclear energy, a fall in the cost of natural uranium, and, accordingly, a decrease in share prices of uranium mining companies.

Collision at Los Rodeos Airport

Possibly the biggest plane crash in the world occurred in the Canary Islands (Tenerife) in 1977. At Los Rodeos Airport, two Boeing 747 airliners owned by KLM and Pan American collided on the runway. As a result, 583 out of 644 people died, including both passengers and crew of airliners.

One of the main reasons for this situation was the terrorist attack at Las Palmas airport, which was staged by terrorists from the MPAIAC organization (Movimiento por la Autodeterminación e Independencia del Archipiélago Canario). The attack itself did not cause any casualties, but the airport authorities closed the airport and stopped accepting planes, fearing repeated incidents.

Because of this, Los Rodeos was overloaded, as planes were sent to it, which followed in Las Palmas, in particular two Boeing 747 flights PA1736 and KL4805. At the same time, it should be noted that the aircraft owned by Pan

American, had enough fuel to land at another airport, but the pilots obeyed the controller's order.

The collision itself was caused by fog, which severely limited visibility, as well as communication difficulties between controllers and pilots, which were caused by the heavy accent of the controllers, and the fact that the pilots constantly interrupted each other.

Collision of Doña Paz with tanker Vector

On December 20, 1987, the Philippine-registered passenger ferry Doña Paz collided with the oil tanker Vector, resulting in the world's worst peacetime water disaster.

At the time of the collision, the ferry was following its standard Manila-Catbalogan route, which it operated twice a week. On December 20, 1987, around 06:30, the Doña Paz left Tacloban and headed for Manila. At about 10:30 p.m., the ferry passed through the Strait of Tablas near Marinduque, according to surviving eyewitnesses, the weather was clear, but with rough seas.

The collision occurred after the passengers fell asleep, the ferry collided with the tanker "Vector", which was transporting gasoline and oil products. Immediately after the collision, a strong fire broke out due to the fact that oil products spilled into the sea. A strong blow and a fire almost instantly caused panic among the passengers, in addition, according to the survivors, the ferry did not have the required number of life jackets.

Only 26 people survived, of which 24 were passengers from Doña Paz and two people from the Vector tanker.

Mass poisoning in Iraq 1971

At the end of 1971, a consignment of grain treated with methylmercury was imported to Iraq from Mexico. Of course, the grain was not intended for processing into food, and was to be used only for planting. Unfortunately, the local population did not know Spanish, and accordingly all the warning signs that said "Do not eat."

It should also be noted that the grain was delivered to Iraq late, as the planting season had already passed. All this led to the fact that in some villages the grain treated with methylmercury began to be eaten.

After eating this grain, symptoms such as numbness of the limbs, loss of vision, and impaired coordination were observed. As a result of criminal negligence, about one hundred thousand people received mercury poisoning, of which about six thousand died.

This incident has led the World Health Organization to take a closer look at the circulation of grain, and began to take the labeling of potentially dangerous products more seriously.

Mass destruction of sparrows in China

Although we do not include human-caused disasters on our list, this case is an exception, because it is caused by banal stupidity and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Nevertheless, this case fully deserves the title of one of the most terrible catastrophes in the world.

As part of the economic policy of the "Great Leap Forward", a large-scale pest control was carried out, among which the Chinese authorities singled out the four most terrible - mosquitoes, rats, flies and sparrows.

Employees of the Chinese Research Institute of Zoology calculated that due to sparrows during the year, the volume of grain was lost, with which it would be possible to feed about thirty-five million people. Based on this, a plan was developed to exterminate these birds, which was approved by Mao Zedong on March 18, 1958.

All peasants actively began to hunt birds. The most effective method was to keep them from sinking to the ground. To do this, adults and children shouted, beat in basins, waved poles, rags, etc. This made it possible to frighten the sparrows and prevent them from landing on the ground for fifteen minutes. As a result, the birds just dropped dead.

After a year of sparrow hunting, the harvest really increased. However, later caterpillars, locusts, and other pests that ate the shoots began to actively breed. This led to the fact that a year later, crops fell sharply, and famine set in, which led to the deaths of 10 to 30 million people.

Piper Alpha oil rig disaster

The Piper Alpha platform was built in 1975, and oil production on it started in 1976. Over time, it was converted for gas production. However, on July 6, 1988, there was a gas leak that caused an explosion.

Due to the indecisive and ill-considered actions of the personnel, 167 people died out of 226 who were on the platform.

Of course, after this event, oil and gas production on this platform was completely stopped. Insured losses amounted to about US$3.4 billion. This is one of the most famous disasters in the world associated with the oil industry.

The death of the Aral Sea

This incident is the biggest environmental disaster in the former Soviet Union. Once the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake, after the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior in North America, Lake Victoria in Africa. Now in its place is the Aralkum desert.

The reason for the disappearance of the Aral Sea is the creation of new irrigation channels for agricultural enterprises in Turkmenistan, which took water from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers. Because of this, the lake has strongly receded from the shore, which led to the exposure of the bottom covered with sea salt, pesticides and chemicals.

Due to the natural evaporation of the Aral Sea during the period from 1960 to 2007, the sea lost about a thousand cubic kilometers of water. In 1989, the reservoir split into two parts, and in 2003, the volume of water was about 10% of the original.

The result of this incident was serious changes in climate and landscape. In addition, out of 178 species of vertebrates that lived in the Aral Sea, only 38 remained;

Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform on April 20, 2010 is considered one of the largest man-made disasters in terms of negative impact on the environment. Directly from the explosion, 11 people died and 17 were injured. Two more people died during the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster.

Due to the fact that pipes were damaged from the explosion at a depth of 1500 meters, in 152 days approximately five million barrels of oil spilled into the sea, which created a slick with an area of ​​​​75 thousand kilometers, in addition, 1770 kilometers of the coast were polluted.

The oil spill endangered 400 animal species and also led to a ban on fishing

Eruption of Mont Pelee volcano

On May 8, 1902, one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions in human history occurred. This incident led to the emergence of a new classification of volcanic eruptions, and changed the attitude of many scientists to volcanology.

The volcano woke up in April 1902, and within a month hot vapors and gases, as well as lava, accumulated inside. A month later, a huge grayish cloud erupted at the foot of the volcano. A feature of this eruption is that the lava came out not from the top, but from side craters that were located on the slopes. As a result of a powerful explosion, one of the main ports of the island of Martinique, the city of Saint-Pierre, was completely destroyed. The disaster claimed the lives of thirty thousand people.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis

This disaster unfolded as follows:

• Cyclone Nargis formed on April 27, 2008, in the Bay of Bengal, and initially moved towards the coast of India, in a northwesterly direction;
• On April 28, it stops moving, but the speed of the wind in spiral eddies began to increase significantly. Because of this, the cyclone began to be classified as a hurricane;
• On April 29, the wind speed reached 160 kilometers per hour, and the cyclone resumed movement, but already in a northeasterly direction;
• On May 1, the direction of the wind movement changed to the east, and at the same time the wind was constantly increasing;
• On May 2, the wind speed reached 215 kilometers per hour, and at noon it reaches the coast of the Myanmar province of Ayeyarwaddy.

According to the UN, as a result of the violence of the elements, 1.5 million people were affected, of which 90,000 died and 56,000 went missing. In addition, the large city of Yangon was seriously damaged, and many settlements were completely destroyed. Part of the country was left without telephone, Internet and electricity. The streets were littered with debris, debris from buildings and trees.

To eliminate the consequences of this catastrophe, the combined forces of many countries of the world and such international organizations as the UN, EU, UNESCO were needed.

Man-made disasters often occur as a result of natural disasters, but also because of worn-out equipment, greed or inattention. The memory of them serves as an important lesson for humanity, because natural disasters can harm us, but not the planet, while man-made ones threaten absolutely the entire world around us.

The collapse of the train with oil in Lac-Megantic, July 6, 2013. The accident occurred in the east of the Canadian province of Quebec. A train carrying seventy tanks of crude oil derailed and the tanks exploded. More than half of the buildings in the city center were destroyed by the explosion and subsequent fire, killing about fifty people.

Explosion at the chemical plant of the Phillips Petroleum Company, October 23, 1989, in Pasadena, Texas. Due to the oversight of the employees, a large leak of combustible gas occurred, and there was a powerful explosion, equivalent to two and a half tons of dynamite. It took firefighters more than ten hours to put out the flames. 23 people died and 314 were injured.

Explosion in a coal mine in Centralia, Illinois, March 25, 1947. The town, now better known for the eternal underground fire, which served as the prototype of the fire in the game and the movie "Silent Hill", suffered in the middle of the 20th century. It was then that an explosion of coal dust buried more than a hundred people at a local mine - some died instantly under the rubble, others from poisonous smoke.

Explosion in Halifax, December 6, 1917. In the bay of the Canadian year of Halifax, the French warship "Mont Blanc", bound for France, collided with the Norwegian ship "Imo". The problem was that Mont Blanc was filled to the brim with explosives, and the force of the explosion was enough to destroy half the city. Two thousand people died, nine thousand were injured.

Bhopal disaster, December 3, 1984. One of the largest man-made disasters in history that occurred in the Indian city of Bhopal. As a result of an accident at a chemical plant producing pesticides, the poisonous substance methyl isocyanite was released. On the day of the release, about 3 thousand people died, another 15 thousand - in subsequent years, and hundreds of thousands were affected in one way or another.

A building collapses in the Bangladeshi city of Savar on April 24, 2013. The Rana Plaza Mall, which also housed clothing businesses, collapsed during rush hour due to poor construction safety. 1127 people died, another 2500 were injured.

Explosion at a chemical plant in Oppau, Germany, September 21, 1921. At the plant where the disaster happened, a month earlier there had already been an explosion that killed a hundred people. But no action was taken, and the next accident claimed the lives of 600 employees and random people, injuring several thousand. 12 tons of a mixture of sulfate and ammonium nitrate exploded with a force of 5 kilotons of TNT, literally wiping the town off the face of the earth.

Chernobyl accident, April 26, 1986. The largest accident in the history of nuclear energy, which has become a kind of symbol of man-made disasters. The explosion of the reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant released radioactive substances into the atmosphere, which forced the evacuation of several settlements. Only 31 people died, but hundreds and thousands of people suffered from the consequences of exposure, and huge areas on the territory of Ukraine and Belarus became uninhabitable for many years.

Explosion in the Benxihu coal mine, April 26, 1942. During World War II, the Benxihu mine in China was under Japanese control, and the miners were treated like slaves. A massive gas leak caused an explosion that killed 1,500 people. It took the workers a week to carry all the dead out of the mine.

Tragedy at the Banqiao Dam, August 8, 1975. Due to flooding caused by Typhoon Nina, the dam burst, killing 26,000 people and injuring hundreds of thousands. The designers of the dam cannot even be blamed for this catastrophe, it was designed for severe floods, but this one was completely unprecedented.

Today, the attention of the whole world is drawn to Chile, where a large-scale eruption of the Calbuco volcano began. The time has come to remember 7 biggest natural disasters recent years to know what the future might hold. Nature steps on people, as people used to step on nature.

Calbuco volcano eruption. Chile

Mount Calbuco in Chile is a fairly active volcano. However, its last eruption took place more than forty years ago - in 1972, and even then it lasted only one hour. But on April 22, 2015, everything changed for the worse. Calbuco literally exploded, ejecting volcanic ash to a height of several kilometers.

On the Internet you can find a huge number of videos about this amazingly beautiful sight. However, it is pleasant to enjoy the view only through a computer, being thousands of kilometers from the scene. In reality, being near Calbuco is scary and deadly.

The Chilean government decided to resettle all people within a radius of 20 kilometers from the volcano. And this is only the first step. It is not yet known how long the eruption will last and what real damage it will bring. But it will definitely be a sum of several billion dollars.

Earthquake in Haiti

On January 12, 2010, Haiti suffered a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. There were several tremors, the main of which had a magnitude of 7. As a result, almost the entire country was in ruins. Even the presidential palace, one of the most majestic and capital buildings in Haiti, was destroyed.

According to official figures, more than 222,000 people died during and after the earthquake, and 311,000 were injured to varying degrees. At the same time, millions of Haitians were left homeless.

This is not to say that magnitude 7 is something unprecedented in the history of seismic observations. The scale of destruction turned out to be so huge due to the high deterioration of infrastructure in Haiti, and also because of the extremely low quality of absolutely all buildings. In addition, the local population itself was in no hurry to provide first aid to the victims, as well as to participate in the removal of rubble and the restoration of the country.

As a result, an international military contingent was sent to Haiti, which took over the government in the first period after the earthquake, when the traditional authorities were paralyzed and extremely corrupt.

Tsunami in the Pacific Ocean

Until December 26, 2004, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Earth knew about the tsunami exclusively from textbooks and disaster films. However, that day will forever remain in the memory of Mankind because of the huge wave that covered the coast of dozens of states in the Indian Ocean.

It all started with a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1-9.3 that occurred just north of the island of Sumatra. It caused a giant wave up to 15 meters high, which spread in all directions of the ocean and hundreds of settlements from the face of the Earth, as well as world-famous seaside resorts.

The tsunami covered coastal areas in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, South Africa, Madagascar, Kenya, Maldives, Seychelles, Oman and other states on the Indian Ocean. Statisticians counted more than 300 thousand dead in this disaster. At the same time, the bodies of many could not be found - the wave carried them into the open ocean.

The consequences of this disaster are enormous. In many places infrastructure was never fully restored after the 2004 tsunami.

Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption

The hard-to-pronounce Icelandic name Eyjafjallajokull became one of the most popular words in 2010. And all thanks to the volcanic eruption in the mountain range with this name.

Paradoxically, not a single person died during this eruption. But this natural disaster seriously disrupted business life throughout the world, primarily in Europe. After all, a huge amount of volcanic ash thrown into the sky from the Eyjafjallajökull vent completely paralyzed air traffic in the Old World. The natural disaster destabilized the lives of millions of people in Europe itself, as well as in North America.

Thousands of flights, both passenger and cargo, were cancelled. The daily losses of airlines during that period amounted to more than $200 million.

Earthquake in China's Sichuan province

As in the case of the earthquake in Haiti, a huge number of victims after a similar disaster in the Chinese province of Sichuan, which occurred there on May 12, 2008, is due to the low level of capital buildings.

As a result of the main quake of magnitude 8, as well as smaller concussions that followed it, more than 69 thousand people died in Sichuan, 18 thousand were missing, and 288 thousand were injured.

At the same time, the government of the People's Republic of China severely limited international assistance in the disaster zone, it tried to solve the problem with its own hands. According to experts, the Chinese thus wanted to hide the real extent of what happened.

For publishing real data about the dead and destruction, as well as for articles about corruption, which led to such huge numbers of losses, the PRC authorities even imprisoned the most famous contemporary Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, for several months.

Hurricane Katrina

However, the scale of the consequences of a natural disaster does not always directly depend on the quality of construction in a particular region, as well as on the presence or absence of corruption there. An example of this is Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Southeast coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico in late August 2005.

The main impact of Hurricane Katrina fell on the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. The rising water level in several places broke through the dam protecting New Orleans, and about 80 percent of the city was under water. At that moment, entire areas were destroyed, infrastructure facilities, transport interchanges and communications were destroyed.

The population who refused or did not have time to evacuate fled on the roofs of houses. The famous Superdom stadium became the main gathering place for people. But it turned into a trap at the same time, because it was already impossible to get out of it.

During the hurricane, 1,836 people died and more than a million were made homeless. The damage from this natural disaster is estimated at 125 billion dollars. At the same time, New Orleans has not been able to return to a full-fledged normal life in ten years - the city's population is still about a third less than in 2005.

March 11, 2011 in the Pacific Ocean east of the island of Honshu there were shocks with a magnitude of 9-9.1, which led to the appearance of a huge tsunami wave up to 7 meters high. She hit Japan, washing away many coastal objects and going deep into the tens of kilometers.

In different parts of Japan, after the earthquake and tsunami, fires broke out, infrastructure, including industrial ones, was destroyed. In total, almost 16 thousand people died as a result of this disaster, and economic losses amounted to about 309 billion dollars.

But this turned out to be not the worst. The world knows about the 2011 disaster in Japan, primarily because of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which occurred as a result of the collapse of a tsunami wave on it.

More than four years have passed since this accident, but the operation at the nuclear power plant is still ongoing. And the settlements closest to it were permanently settled. So Japan got its own.

A large-scale natural disaster is one of the options for the death of our Civilization. We have collected .

The worship of the four natural elements can be traced in many philosophical and religious movements. Of course, modern man thinks this is ridiculous. He, like the hero of Turgenev's novel, Yevgeny Bazarov, considers nature not a temple, but rather a workshop. However, nature often reminds of its omnipotence, throwing natural disasters at people. And then there is nothing left but to pray to the elements for mercy. Throughout its history, what kind of natural disasters have not interfered with the life of mankind.

The epicenter was in Shaanxi province. Today it is difficult to say what its magnitude was, but some scientists, based on geological data, call 8 points. But the essence is not so much in its power, but in the number of victims - 830 thousand people. This number of victims is the largest among all earthquakes.

2.2 billion cubic meters - these are the scales, or rather volumes, of a landslide, all this loose material has slid down from the slopes of the Muzkolsky ridge (height - 5 thousand meters above sea level). The village of Usoy was completely littered, the flow of the Mugrab River stopped, a new lake Sarez appeared, which, growing, flooded several more villages.

Element water

The most devastating flooding also occurred in China. The season was rainy, resulting in flooding of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. In total, about 40 million people were affected, 4 million people died. In some places, the water came down only after six months.

Although why look for natural disasters in Asian countries, when in 1824 a devastating flood occurred in. And today, on the walls of some old houses, you can see commemorative marks that demonstrate the then water level on the streets. Fortunately, the death toll did not reach a thousand, but no one knows the exact number of victims, many are missing.

This year there was one of the worst tsunamis in Europe. It affected many coastal countries, but Portugal suffered the most damage. The capital Lisbon was practically wiped off the face of the earth. More than 100 thousand people died, cultural and historical monuments disappeared, for example, paintings by Rubens and Caravaggio.

Element air

Hurricane San Calixto II, which raged for a week in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, claimed over 27 thousand lives of innocent people. There is no exact data on its strength, trajectory of movement, it is likely that its speed exceeded 320 km / h.

This powerful hurricane originated in the Atlantic basin, its maximum speed reached 285 km/h. 11 thousand people died and about the same number disappeared without a trace.

8.

We have witnessed this event. From the news stories, they watched the devastation of the hurricane, which killed 1,836 people and caused $ 125 billion in damage.

Element fire

That hot summer in Greece there were 3,000 fires. Territories with a total area of ​​2.7 thousand square meters were affected. km. These were agricultural lands, forests, olive groves. The fires claimed 79 lives.

Speaking of fire, how not to mention fiery eruptions. The powerful eruption of Krakatau that year destroyed the island itself, killing 2,000 people. The explosion of the volcano caused a tsunami that hit the neighboring islands, killing another 36 thousand people.