Top 10 list of
Natural Disasters
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1. Let me first ignore some recent
notable disasters, including Mount St. Helens (1980), the Los Angeles
Quake (1994) and even the great San Fransisco event of 1906, as being
too lightweight for this list. However relatively recently, in 1992,
the most destructive hurricane ever to hit the U.S. (Andrew) landed
twice, first in Florida, then in Louisiana. Although the death toll was
'only' 26, the property damage added up to a staggering $25 billion,
making it the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.
2. The list
contains several volcanos. That of the Nevado del Ruiz (Columbia) in
1985, claimed the lives of 25,000 people, most of them caught in a
massive mudflow that poured down the stricken mountain.
3. My first
earthquake is one of the most famous, the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in
China, a magnitude 8 event whose toll of lives varies between the
official 255,000, and an estimated 655,000. This event truly began the
modern era of intense seismic hazard monitoring in China and the West.
4. This choice
again highlights volcano-related disasters. However, should I choose
the Tambora, Indonesia volcano of 1815, in which 80,000 people died of
the subsequent famine, or the famous Dradatoa explosion, again in
Indonesia, in 1883 in which more than 50,000 people died, many of them
engulfed in a tsunami? Well, you see I did both!
5. Very close to
home here, the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12 in southern Missouri
remain the largest (two) earthquakes ever to hit the contiguous U.S.
(the main event is estimated at a magnitude 7.9). Damage was however
relatively light due to the sparse population at that time in the
Mid-West. Not so if it would happen today!
6. Originally
thought to be an earthquake, though this is unlikely from a tectonics
point of view, the event in 1737 that killed some 300,000 people in
Calcutta, India, is now ascribed to a typhoon, certainly making it the
most expensive atmospheric event ever in terms of casualties.
7. Little is
known of the world's most lethal earthquake that struck the Chinese
city of Shaanzi in 1556. No magnitudes are quoted, and of course no
recordings exist, for the event which is said to have claimed the lives
of 830,000 people.
8. In the bright
blue Mediterranean Sea is the remnant of Stroggli, an island that
literally blew up somewhere around 1500 B.C. Now known as Santorini,
the volcanic explosion and the associated tsunami virtually erradicated
the wonderful Minoan civilization. Unlike Pompei, the population must
have been warned of the impending disaster since few bodies have been
found. Plato himself clearly referred to Santorini as the site where
the city of Atlantis disappeared under the waves.
9. Considerable
evidence exists for a major global paleoclimate event that happened
around 3000B.C. It appears to have affected sea-level changes,
vegetation and much surface chemistry. There is speculation that this
event is in fact the Biblical Flood of the Old Testament. Scientists
naturally avoid equating 'natural' disasters with 'Acts of God', but in
this case the time coincidence is bery suggestive.
10. Perhaps the
most devastating known mass extinction occurred at the
Cretaceous-Tertiary Stratigraphic Boundary, 65 million years ago, and
ended not only the dinosaurs but countless thousands of other species.
The jury is still out on the cause of this event, asteroid or volcano?
Both of course are popular box office material.
Armageddon
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