There have always been disasters: environmental, man-made. Over the past hundred years, a lot of them have happened.

Major disasters on the water

People have been crossing seas and oceans for hundreds of years. During this time, there have been many shipwrecks.

For example, in 1915, a German submarine fired a torpedo and blew up a British passenger liner. It happened not far from the Irish coast. The vessel sank to the bottom in a matter of minutes. About 1200 people died.

In 1944, the catastrophe happened right in the Bombay port. During the unloading of the steamer, a powerful explosion occurred. The cargo ship contained explosives, gold bars, sulfur, timber and cotton. It was the burning cotton, scattered within a radius of one kilometer, that caused the fire of all ships in the port, warehouses and even many urban objects. The city burned for two weeks. 1,300 people died, more than 2,000 were injured. The port entered its operating mode only 7 months after the disaster.

The most famous and large-scale disaster on the water is the wreck of the famous "Titanic". He went under water on his maiden voyage. The giant was unable to change course when an iceberg appeared directly in front of him. The liner sank, and with it one and a half thousand people.

At the end of 1917, there was a collision of the French and Norwegian ships - "Mont Blanc" and "Imo". The French ship was fully loaded with explosives. A powerful explosion, along with the port, destroyed part of the city of Halifax. The consequences of this explosion in human lives: 2000 dead and 9000 injured. This explosion is considered the most powerful before the appearance of nuclear weapons.

In 1916, the Germans torpedoed a French ship. 3130 people died. After the attack on the German hospital, General Steuben left afloat 3,600 people.

In early 1945, a submarine commanded by Marinesco fired a torpedo into the German liner Wilhelm Gustlov, which was carrying passengers. At least 9,000 people died.

Major disasters in Russia

Several catastrophes have occurred on the territory of our country, which in terms of their scale are considered the largest in the history of the state. These include an accident on the railroad near Ufa. An accident occurred on the pipeline, which was located next to the railway track. As a result of the accumulated fuel mixture in the air at the moment when the passenger trains met, an explosion thundered. 654 people died and about 1000 were injured.

The largest ecological catastrophe not only in the country, but throughout the world also occurred on the territory of Russia. We are talking about the Aral Sea, which has practically dried up. This was facilitated by many factors, including social and soil. The Aral Sea was gone for some half a century. In the 60s of the last century, the fresh waters of the tributaries of the Aral Sea were used in many areas in agriculture. By the way, the Aral Sea was considered one of the largest lakes in the world. Now its place is taken by land.

Another indelible mark on the history of the fatherland was left by the flood in 2012 in the city of Krymsk, Krasnodar Territory. Then, in two days, as much precipitation fell as it does in 5 months. Due to the natural disaster, 179 people died, and 34 thousand local residents were injured.

The largest nuclear disaster

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 went down in history not only Soviet Union but the whole world. The power block of the station exploded. As a result, there was a powerful release of radiation into the atmosphere. To the present day, within a radius of 30 km from the epicenter of the explosion, it is considered an exclusion zone. There is still no exact data on the consequences of this terrible catastrophe.

Also nuclear explosion occurred in 2011, when the nuclear reactor at Fukushima-1 failed. This happened due to a strong earthquake in Japan. A huge amount of radiation entered the atmosphere.

The largest disasters in the history of mankind

In 2010, an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. After a stunning fire, the platform quickly went under water, but oil was poured into the ocean for another 152 days. According to scientists, the area covered by the oil slick was 75 thousand square kilometers.

The worst global disaster in terms of the number of deaths was the explosion of a chemical plant. It happened in the Indian city of Bhapol in 1984. Killed 18 thousand people, a large number of people received radiation.

In 1666, a fire broke out in London, which is still considered the most powerful fire in history. The fire wiped out 70 thousand houses from the face of the earth and took the lives of 80 thousand inhabitants of the city. It took 4 days to eliminate the fire.

For centuries, natural disasters have not let go of humanity. Some happened so long ago that scientists cannot estimate the extent of the destruction. For example, the Mediterranean island of Stroggly is believed to have been razed to the ground by a volcanic eruption around 1500 BC. The tsunami wiped out the entire Minoan civilization, but no one even knows the approximate death toll. However, the 10 most devastating disasters known, mostly earthquakes and floods, have killed an estimated 10 million people.

10. Earthquake in Aleppo - 1138, Syria (victims: 230,000)

One of the most powerful earthquakes known to mankind, and the fourth in the number of victims (according to an approximate estimate of over 230 thousand dead). The city of Aleppo, a large and populous urban center since antiquity, is geologically located along the northern part of a system of large geological faults, which also include the Dead Sea Basin, and which separate the Arabian and African tectonic plates, which are in constant interaction. The Damascus chronicler Ibn al-Kalanisi recorded the date of the earthquake - Wednesday, October 11, 1138, and also indicated the number of victims - over 230 thousand people. A similar number of casualties and destruction shocked contemporaries, especially the Western knights-crusaders, because then in northwestern Europe, where most of them were from, a rare city had a population of 10 thousand inhabitants. After the earthquake, the population of Aleppo recovered only by the beginning of the 19th century, when a population of 200 thousand inhabitants was again recorded in the city.

9. Indian Ocean earthquake - 2004, Indian Ocean (victims: 230,000+)

The third, and according to some estimates the second strongest, is the underwater earthquake in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. It caused the tsunami, which caused the bulk of the damage. Scientists estimate the magnitude of the earthquake to be from 9.1 to 9.3 points. The epicenter was under water, north of Shimolue Island, which is northwest of Indonesian Sumatra. Huge waves reached the shores of Thailand, southern India and Indonesia. Then the wave height reached 15 meters. Many territories were subjected to enormous destruction and casualties, including in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, which is 6900 km from the epicenter. The exact number of victims is unknown, but it is estimated from 225 to 300 thousand people. It will not be possible to calculate the true figure, since many bodies were simply carried away by water into the sea. It is curious, but a few hours before the arrival of the tsunami, many animals reacted sensitively to the impending catastrophe - they left the coastal zones, moving to the hills.

8. Destruction of the Banqiao Dam - 1975, China (Victims: 231,000)

There are different estimates of the number of victims of the disaster. The official figure, about 26,000 people, takes into account only those directly drowned during the flood itself; Taking into account the deaths from epidemics and famine that spread as a result of the disaster, the total number of victims is, according to various estimates, 171,000 or even 230,000. The dam was designed in such a way as to survive the largest floods that occur once every thousand years (306 mm of precipitation per day). However, in August 1975, the largest flood in 2,000 years occurred, as a consequence of the powerful typhoon Nina and several days of record storms. The flood caused a huge wave of water 10 kilometers wide, 3-7 meters high. In an hour, the tide went 50 kilometers from the coast and reached the plains, creating artificial lakes there with a total area of ​​12,000 square kilometers. Seven provinces were flooded, including thousands of square kilometers of countryside and countless communications.

7. Tangshan earthquake - 1976, China (casualties: 242,000)

The second strongest earthquake also occurred in China. On July 28, 1976, the Tangshan earthquake took place in Hebei province. Its magnitude was 8.2 points, which makes the event the largest natural disaster of the century. The official death toll was 242,419. However, most likely the figure was underestimated by the PRC authorities by 3-4 times. This suspicion is based on the fact that according to Chinese documents, the earthquake strength is indicated only at 7.8 points. Tangshan was almost immediately destroyed by powerful aftershocks, the epicenter of which was at a depth of 22 km under the city. Even Tianjin and Beijing, which are 140 kilometers from the epicenter, were destroyed. The consequences of the disaster were dire - 5.3 million homes were destroyed and damaged to such an extent that it was impossible to live in them. The number of victims increased due to the subsequent series of aftershocks to 7.1 points. Today in the center of Tangshan there is a stele that reminds of a terrible catastrophe, there is also an information center dedicated to those events. It is a kind of museum on this subject, the only one in China.

6. Flood in Kaifeng - 1642, China (casualties: 300,000)

Long-suffering China again. Formally, this disaster can be considered natural, but it was arranged by human hands. In 1642, a peasant uprising took place in China, led by Li Zicheng. The rebels approached the city of Kaifeng. In order to prevent the capture of the city by the rebels, the command of the troops of the Ming dynasty gave the order to flood the city and the surrounding area with the waters of the Yellow River. When the water receded and the famine caused by the artificial flood ended, it turned out that of the 600,000 people in the city and its environs, only half survived. At that time, it was one of the bloodiest punitive actions in history.

5. Cyclone in India - 1839, India (Victims: 300,000+)

Although the photograph of the cyclone does not belong to 1839, it can be used to appreciate the full power of this natural phenomenon. The Indian cyclone of 1839 was not destructive in itself, but it caused powerful tidal waves that killed 300,000 people. The tidal waves completely destroyed the city of Koringa and drowned 20,000 ships that were in the bay of the city.

4. The Great China Earthquake - 1556 (Victims: 830,000)

In 1556, the most destructive earthquake in the history of mankind took place, called the Great China Earthquake. It happened on January 23, 1556 in the Shaanxi province. Historians believe that the natural disaster claimed the lives of about 830,000 people, more than any other similar event. Some areas of Shaanxi were completely depopulated, while in the rest more than half of the people died. Such a huge number of victims was explained by the fact that most of the inhabitants lived in loess caves, which, at the first shocks, immediately collapsed or were subsequently flooded by mudflows. According to modern estimates, this earthquake was assigned a category of 11 points. One of the eyewitnesses warned his descendants that when a disaster began, one should not rush headlong into the street: "When a bird's nest falls from a tree, eggs often remain unharmed." Such words are evidence that many people died while trying to leave their homes. The destructiveness of the earthquake is evidenced by the ancient steles of Xi'an, collected in the local Beilin Museum. Many of them are crumbled or cracked. During the cataclysm, the Wild Goose Pagoda located here survived, but its foundation sank 1.6 meters.

3. Cyclone Bhola - 1970 (Victims: 500,000 - 1,000,000)

A devastating tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan and Indian West Bengal on November 12, 1970. The deadliest tropical cyclone and one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history. About half a million people lost their lives as a result of the impact of a storm tide that flooded many of the low-lying islands of the Ganges delta. It was the sixth storm cyclone in the 1970 North Indian Ocean hurricane season and the most severe this year.
The cyclone formed over the central part of the Bay of Bengal on November 8, after which it began to move northward, gaining strength. It reached its peak on the evening of November 12, and on the same night made contact with the coastline of East Pakistan. The storm tide has devastated numerous coastal islands, sweeping away entire villages and destroying agricultural land in the region. In the most affected region of the country - Upazil Tazumuddin - more than 45% of the 167,000 population perished.
Political implications
The sluggish pace of the rescue efforts only heightened resentment and resentment in East Pakistan and fueled local resistance movements. Subsidies came in slowly, with transport slowly delivering urgently needed funds to areas devastated by the storm. In March 1971, the tension grew steadily, foreign specialists began to leave the province, fearing outbursts of violence. In the future, the situation continued to deteriorate and escalated into the War of Independence, which began on March 26. Later, in December of that year, this conflict expanded into the third Indo-Pakistani war, which culminated in the creation of the state of Bangladesh. The events that took place can be considered one of the first cases when a natural phenomenon provoked a civil war, the subsequent external intervention of a third force and the disintegration of one country into two independent states.

2. Flood in the Yellow River Valley - 1887, China (Victims: 900,000 - 2,000,000)

One of the worst floods in modern history of mankind, which, according to various sources, claimed from 1.5 to 7 million lives, happened in the late spring of 1887 in the northern provinces of China, in the valley of the Yellow River. Heavy rains across nearly all of Hunan that spring caused the river to flood. The first flood occurred at a steep bend in the vicinity of the city of Zhangzhou.
Day after day, bubbling waters invaded the cities, destroying and devastating them. A total of 600 riverside cities were affected by the flood, including the walled city of Hunan. The rushing stream continued to wash away fields, animals, cities and people, flooding an area 70 km wide with water reaching a depth of 15 meters.
Water often against wind and tide slowly flooded terrace after terrace, each of which gathered from 12 to 100 families. Of the 10 houses, only one or two survived. Half of the buildings were hidden under water. People were lying on the roofs of houses, and old people who did not die of hunger were dying of cold.
The tops of the poplars that once stood along the roads stuck out of the water like seaweed. Here and there strong men were holding onto old trees with thick branches and calling for help. In one place a box with a dead child was nailed to a tree, which was placed there for safety by his parents. The drawer contained food and a name note. In another place, a family was found, all of whose members had died, the child was placed on the highest place ... well covered with clothes. "
The devastation and devastation left after the water subsided was terrible. Statistics could not cope with the task of calculating. By 1889, when the Yellow River finally returned to its course, disease was added to all the misfortunes of the floods. It is estimated that half a million people have died from cholera.

1. Great Flood - 1931, China (Victims: 1,000,000 - 4,000,000)

The summer period of monsoon rains in 1931 turned out to be extremely stormy. Heavy rains and tropical cyclones raged in river basins. The dams withstood heavy rainfalls and storms for weeks, but in the end they could not withstand the load and collapsed in hundreds of places. Approximately 333,000 hectares of land were flooded, at least 40,000,000 people lost their homes, and the loss of crops was enormous. On large areas, the water did not drain from three to six months. Disease, lack of food, lack of shelter have led to the death of a total of 3.7 million people.
One of the epicenters of the tragedy was the city of Gaoyu in the northern province of Jiangsu. A powerful typhoon hit the fifth largest lake in China, Gaoyu, on August 26, 1931. The water level in it has already risen to a record height as a result of heavy rains in the previous weeks. The squally wind raised high waves that beat against the dams. After midnight, the battle was lost. The dams were broken in six places, and the largest breach reached almost 700 m. A stormy stream swept through the city and the province. In one morning alone, about 10,000 people died in Gaoyu.

Disasters have been known for a long time - these are volcanic eruptions, powerful earthquakes, and tornadoes. In the last century, there have been many water disasters and terrible nuclear disasters.

The worst water disasters

Man has been sailing on sailing ships, boats, ships across the vastness of the oceans and seas for hundreds of years. During this time, a huge number of disasters, shipwrecks and accidents occurred.

In 1915, a German submarine torpedoed a British passenger liner. The ship sank in eighteen minutes, being thirteen kilometers off the coast of Ireland. One thousand one hundred and ninety-eight people died.

In April 1944, a terrible catastrophe occurred in the port of Bombay. It all started with the fact that when unloading a single-screw steamer, which was loaded with gross violations of safety regulations, a powerful explosion occurred. It is known that the ship was carrying one and a half tons of explosives, several tons of cotton, sulfur, timber, gold bars. After the first explosion, the second one sounded. The burning cotton scattered within a radius of nearly a kilometer. Almost all ships, warehouses burned, fires began in the city. It was possible to extinguish them only after two weeks. As a result, about two and a half thousand people ended up in hospitals, one thousand three hundred seventy six people were killed. The port was restored only after seven months.

The most famous of the water disasters is the sinking of the Titanic. Having collided with an iceberg during the first voyage, the ship sank. More than one and a half thousand people died.

In December 1917, the French warship Mont Blanc collided with the Norwegian ship Imo near the city of Halifax. A huge explosion took place, which led to the destruction of not only the port, but also part of the city. The fact is that the Mont Blanc was loaded exclusively with explosives. About two thousand people died, nine thousand were injured. This is the most powerful explosion of the pre-nuclear era.

Three thousand one hundred and thirty people died on a French cruiser after a torpedo attack by a German submarine in 1916. As a result of torpedoing the German floating hospital "General Steuben" killed about three thousand six hundred and eight people.

In December 1987, a Filipino passenger ferry named Doña Paz collided with the tanker Vector. Four thousand three hundred seventy-five people died in this case.

In May 1945, a tragedy occurred in the Baltic Sea, which claimed the lives of about eight thousand people. The Tilbeck cargo ship and the Cap Arcona liner came under fire from British aircraft. As a result of the torpedoing of the ship "Goya" by the Soviet submarine in the spring of 1945, six thousand nine hundred people died.

"Wilhelm Gustlov" was the name of the German passenger liner sunk by a submarine under the command of Marinesco in January 1945. The exact number of victims is unknown, approximately nine thousand people.

The worst disasters in Russia

There are several terrible disasters that have occurred on the territory of Russia. So, in June 1989, not far from Ufa, one of the largest railway accidents in Russia occurred. There was a huge explosion as two passenger trains passed. An unlimited cloud of fuel-air mixture exploded, which was formed due to an accident on a nearby pipeline. According to some sources, five hundred seventy-five people died, according to others - six hundred and forty-five. Another six hundred people were injured.

The worst ecological disaster on the territory the former USSR the death of the Aral Sea is considered. For a number of reasons: soil, social, biological, the Aral Sea has almost completely dried up in fifty years. Most of its tributaries in the sixties were used for irrigation and some other agricultural needs. The Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world. As the influx of fresh water was significantly reduced, the lake gradually died.

In the summer of 2012, a massive flood occurred in the Krasnodar Territory. It is considered the largest disaster in Russia. For two July days, a five-month rainfall fell. The city of Krymsk was almost completely washed away by water. 179 people were officially declared dead, of which 159 were residents of Krymsk. More than 34 thousand local residents suffered.

The worst nuclear disasters

A huge number of people are exposed to nuclear disasters. So in April 1986, one of the power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. Radioactive substances that got into the atmosphere settled on nearby villages and cities. This accident is one of the most devastating of its kind. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the liquidation of the accident. Several hundred people were killed or injured. A thirty-kilometer exclusion zone has been formed around the nuclear power plant. Until now, the scale of the disaster has not been clarified.

In Japan, in March 2011, an explosion occurred at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant during an earthquake. Because of this, a large number of radioactive substances got into the atmosphere. At first, officials kept silent about the scale of the disaster.

After Chernobyl disaster The most significant is the nuclear accident that occurred in 1999 in the Japanese city of Tokaimura. An accident occurred at a uranium processing plant. Six hundred people received radiation, four people died.

The worst catastrophe in the history of mankind

The explosion of an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 is considered the most destructive catastrophe for the biosphere in the entire history of mankind. The platform itself went under water after the explosion. As a result, a huge amount of oil products got into the world ocean. The spill lasted one hundred and fifty-two days. The oil slick covered an area equal to seventy-five thousand square kilometers in the Gulf of Mexico.

In terms of the number of victims, the most ambitious disaster is considered, which in December 1984 occurred in India in the city of Bhapol. A chemical leak occurred at one of the factories. Eighteen thousand people died. Until now, the causes of this catastrophe are not fully understood.

It is impossible not to say about the worst fire that occurred in London in 1666. The fire spread with lightning speed throughout the city, about seventy thousand houses were destroyed, about eighty thousand people died. The fire lasted four days.

Not only catastrophes are terrible, but also entertainment. The site has a rating of the scariest rides in the world.
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Most dictionaries interpret the basic meaning of the word "catastrophe" as an event with tragic consequences. It is precisely such events that still terrify our contemporaries with their scale and the number of dead people and animals that the history of our planet has not so few. The most terrible disasters sometimes influenced the further development of the affected countries or even the entire civilization.

With the development of technology, people began to explore such unsuitable ocean spaces for their existence, and then turned their dreams and aspirations to the sky. With the advent of huge ocean cruisers, multi-seat passenger airliners, the number of people killed and injured in disasters has increased significantly. In the last century, man-made disasters have been added, which can also be called one of the most ambitious.

Largest civil aviation plane crash

The most terrible plane crashes include Tenerife, which resulted in the death of 583 people. It all happened on March 27, 1977 directly on the runway of Los Rodeos airport, located near the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands). All passengers of the Boeing KLM were killed, including 14 crew members, with the exception of one passenger, Robina Van Lanscot, who decided to interrupt the flight to meet a friend and got off in Tenerife. But on board the Pan American Boeing after the crash were the survivors. 61 people managed to escape - 54 passengers and 7 crew members.

Due to the terrorist attack that occurred on the eve of the largest airport in the Canary Islands, Las Palmas, it was closed, and the airport of Los Rodeos was heavily congested due to these events. It was a day off, and many planes that were not accepted by Las Palmas filled all the parking lots. Some of them stood on the taxiways. The reasons that led to the terrible disaster are known:

• fog, due to which the visibility was initially limited to 300 meters, and a little later became even less;
• lack of lights at the borders of the runway and taxiway;
• a strong Spanish accent of the controller, which the pilots did not understand well, they asked and clarified his orders;
• the lack of coordinated actions on the part of the pilots during negotiations with the dispatcher, they entered into a conversation and interrupted each other.

KLM subsequently claimed responsibility for the tragedy and paid significant compensation to the families of the victims and injured.

On May 5, 1937, a German cruise ship named after Wilhelm Gustloff, one of the leaders of the Swiss National Socialists, who had died a year earlier, was launched.

The passenger liner had ten decks, was designed for 1.5 thousand people, it was served by 417 crew members. The vessel was built using the most advanced technologies and was very comfortable. The liner was intended primarily for long and leisurely cruises. In 1939, "Wilhelm Gustloff" was transferred to the German Navy. Soon it became a floating hospital, and then, after 1940, it was assigned to the diving school in Gotenhafen. His color became camouflage again, and he lost the protection of the Hague Convention.

After a torpedo attack by a Soviet submarine under the command of A.I. Marinescu, "Wilhelm Gustloff" sank off the coast of Poland on January 30, 1945. According to official data, 5,348 people died, however, the exact number of passengers remained unknown.

On November 7, 1941, near the Crimean coast, Hitler's aircraft sunk the Soviet motor ship "Armenia", on board which, presumably, there were more than 3,000 people.

From the point of view of ecology, one of the largest catastrophes is currently taking place on the planet - a decrease in the level of the Aral Sea and its drying out. The so-called Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake on the planet after the Caspian Sea (which, due to its isolation, can qualify as a lake), Lake Superior in North America and Lake Victoria in Africa.

But after the runoffs of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, which fed the Aral, began to flow through the constructed irrigation systems, the lake became shallow. In the summer of 2014, its eastern part practically dried up, the volume of water decreased to 10%.

All this led to climate change, which became continental. The sandy-salt desert Aralkum appeared on the bottom of the former sea. Dust storms carry the smallest particles of salt interspersed with pesticides and agricultural fertilizers, which at one time got into the Aral Sea from fields through rivers and can negatively affect the health of people and animals. Due to salinity, most species of marine life have disappeared, ports have closed, people have lost their jobs.

Such disasters, affecting the population of the entire planet with their destructive consequences, first of all, include the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. During the explosion of the fourth nuclear reactor, it was completely destroyed. Elimination of the consequences has not yet been completed. After April 26, 1986, all people - 135,000 people and 35,000 head of livestock - were evacuated from the crash site within a radius of 30 km. A guarded exclusion zone was created. Ukraine, Belarus, and the west of Russia suffered the most from radioactive substances that got into the air. In other countries, an increase in the radioactive background was also noted. More than 600,000 people took part in eliminating the consequences of this disaster.

The largest earthquake in Japan, which occurred on March 11, 2011, and then the tsunami, caused a radiation accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, which has the highest, seventh level. External power supplies and standby diesel generators were put out of action, which led to a failure in the cooling system, and then the melting of the reactor core at 1, 2, 3 power units. The total financial damage, which includes decontamination work, compensation for victims and internally displaced persons, is approximately $ 189 billion.

Another catastrophe that affected the state of the entire biosphere of the Earth is the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform that happened on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill caused by the accident was the largest. At the time of the explosion itself and in the subsequent fire on the semi-submersible installation, 11 people died and 17 of 126 were injured, who were on the platform at that moment. Two more died later. Oil flowed into the gulf for 152 days; in total, more than 5 million barrels entered the gulf. This man-made disaster had a devastating effect on the ecology of the entire area. Various species of marine animals, fish and birds were affected. And in the north of the Gulf of Mexico, in the same year, an increased mortality of cetaceans was recorded. In addition to oil, a large number of underwater oil plumes were formed on the surface of the water (the slick size reached 75,000 km²), the length of which reached 16 km, and the width and height, respectively, 5 km and 90 m.

These are just a few terrible accidents that can be classified as the most terrible disasters in the history of mankind, but there were others, sometimes less known, that brought people a lot of destruction and misfortune. Often these disasters were caused by war or a whole series of accidents, and in some cases, the destructive force of nature brought grief.

12/2/2018 at 23:03 · oksioksi · 2 240

10 worst natural disasters in the world

The history of mankind has undergone a large number of catastrophes with various natural disasters. Some happened so long ago that most scientists cannot estimate the extent of the destruction.

Natural disasters are extremely unpredictable, highly destructive and often insurmountable. That is why people are most afraid of them. We present to your attention a list of some of the most horrific natural disasters and man-made disasters that have claimed many lives.

10. The Banqiao Dam

In 1952, the disaster struck at Banqiao, a dike built to protect against flooding. During the construction of the dam, gross erroneous actions were committed, as a result, the dam was covered with microcracks, and later could not withstand the pressure of the tropical hurricane "Nina". As a result, the floods killed 26 thousand people. Seven areas in China were flooded, and the few remaining communications were destroyed after the rain.

Among the survivors, a dangerous disease with hunger quickly spread, the consequences of the disaster claimed another 170-220 thousand people.

9. Indian cyclone - 1839

On November 25, 1839, a cyclone with a storm occurred in India, which destroyed the city of Coringu. He destroyed almost everything he came into contact with. 2 thousand ships that were in the gulf were destroyed. The city was not rebuilt. The storm surge raised by the cyclone washed away almost 300 thousand people.

The incident was one of the worst floods ever to hit an area destroyed by a typhoon. The oldest city of Koringa has never been rebuilt.

8. Flooding in Kaifeng

The year 1642 was marked by tragedy - the flood in Kaifeng, a man-made catastrophic event. Kaifeng was located on the southern banks of the river. Yellow River. The city was covered with yellow river waters just after the army of the Ming Dynasty ordered the dams to be opened to prevent the advance of Li Jicheng's troops. Then followed by famine with plague and flooding killed 300-380 thousand people.

7. Earthquake in Aleppo

One of the most terrifying natural disasters that ever occurred in nature was the earthquake in Aleppo in October 1138. According to some reports, more than 230 thousand people died. During those ancient times, Aleppo was the largest urban center. The city was located along the largest geological faults. After the earthquake, the population of Aleppo was able to recover closer to the beginning of the 19th century.

6. China earthquake - 1556

In 1556, one of the most destructive earthquakes recorded in historical reference books occurred, which happened on January 23, 1556 in the Shaanxi region. In historical reference books, it is believed that the tragedy claimed the lives of more than 820 thousand people.

In some areas of Shaanxi, no one survived at all, while in others more than half of the population died. Such losses among people were associated with the fact that more people lived in caves that collapsed as a result of tremors.

5. Earthquake in the Indian Ocean in 2004

The third largest earthquake in history was the Indian Ocean earthquake at the end of December 2004. This led to a very large wave that caused great damage. Scientists estimated the amplitude of the earthquake at 9.1-9.3 points.

The source of the earthquake was registered under water, large waves, approximately 15 meters high, reached the coast of Thailand, southern regions of India and Indonesia. Many territories were badly damaged, the earthquake caused a lot of destruction, the exact losses are unknown, according to rough estimates, it is 220-300 thousand people.

4. Tangshan earthquake

In the provincial Chinese town of Hebei in 1976, the strongest earthquake of the 20th century happened. According to official statistics, the PRC authorities have the following indicators: the number of deaths was estimated at 250 thousand, an earthquake with a magnitude of fluctuations of 7.9. Unofficial calculations have revealed that the number of victims is 650-800 thousand people.

The epicenter of the earthquake fell at a depth of 22 kilometers. The city collapsed almost to the ground in a couple of tens of seconds. About 800 thousand people were injured with varying degrees of severity.

3. Cyclone Bhola

November 1970 was marked by tragic events with dire consequences. Almost 500 thousand people died as a result of the action of the storm tidal wave on the coast of East Pakistan.

The typhoon was truly fatal, since the map of states changed significantly. Due to the sharp criticism of the authorities for slow actions in eliminating the consequences of the hurricane, the Eastern Opposition Party won the elections. After that, a protracted confrontation began, which led to military conflicts. As a result, Bangladesh was formed.

2. Floods on the Yellow River in 1887

Flood on the r. The Yellow River in the late spring of 1887 became one of the most terrifying in historical records. According to some sources, between 1.4 and 2 million people died. Disasters occurred in the northern provinces in China in the Yellow River Valley. Heavy rain in almost all areas of the Yellow River provoked floods on the river, which led to flooding of 50 thousand square meters. miles around. Peasants, aware of the peculiarities of frequent flooding of the Yellow River, built dams to save them from annual flooding. However, in that year, the river demolished everything in its path.

1. Flood in China - 1931

Long dry summers in China brought summer torrential monsoon rains with tropical cyclones. The result was that overflowing the banks of the river, which flooded about 333 thousand hectares of land, at least 40 million people were left homeless with huge crop losses. In large areas, the water did not leave from 3 to 6 months. Diseases, lack of food, lack of a roof over their heads - all this led to large losses, according to some estimates, up to 4 million people.

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