Disaster History

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating and deadly tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $186.3 billion (2022 USD) in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area.[1] Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in […]

On 30 July 2014, a landslide occurred in the village of Malin in the Ambegaon taluka of the Pune district in Maharashtra, India. The landslide, which hit early in the morning while residents were asleep,[3] was believed to have been caused by a burst of heavy rainfall, and killed at least 151 people.[4] Rains continued after the landslide making rescue efforts difficult. Cause The landslides

The blizzard and flood of 1863 was a series of consecutive natural disasters in Central Otago in New Zealand’s South Island. In the early 1860s the area was in the midst of a gold rush. From July to August 1863 the gold fields suffered from a combination of floods, snowstorms, and blizzards that caused heavy loss of life among the gold miners.

The solar storm of 2012 was a solar storm involving an unusually large and strong coronal mass ejection that occurred on July 23, 2012. It missed Earth with a margin of approximately nine days, as the equator of the Sun rotates around its own axis with a period of about 25 days.[1] The region that produced the outburst was thus not

The 2013 Seddon earthquake measured 6.5 on the Mww scale and was centred in New Zealand’s Cook Strait, around 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of the town of Seddon in Marlborough. The earthquake struck at 5:09:30 pm on Sunday 21 July 2013 (05:09 UTC) at a depth of 13 kilometres (8 mi), according to Geonet.[2] The United States Geological Survey also measured the quake at 6.5, at a depth of 17

The 1998 Papua New Guinea earthquake occurred on July 17 with a moment magnitude of 7.0 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The event occurred on a reverse fault near the north coast region of Papua New Guinea, 25 kilometers (16 mi) from the coast near Aitape and caused a large undersea landslide which caused a tsunami that hit the coast, killing between at least 2,183 and

In June and July 2018, a junior association football team was rescued from Tham Luang Nang Non, a cave system in Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand. Twelve members of the team, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered the cave on 23 June after a practice session. Shortly after they entered, heavy rainfall began and partially

The 1958 Lituya Bay earthquake occurred on July 9, 1958 at 22:15:58 PST with a moment magnitude of 7.8 to 8.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme).[4] The strike-slip earthquake took place on the Fairweather Fault and triggered a rockslide of 30 million cubic meters (40 million cubic yards) and about 90 million tons into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay, Alaska. The impact was heard 80 kilometers (50 mi) away,[7] and the sudden displacement

The 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake (Persian: زمین‌لرزه ۱۳۶۹ رودبار و منجیل) occurred on Thursday, 21 June 1990 at 00:30:14 local time in the Caspian Sea region of northern Iran. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.4 and a Mercalli Intensity of X (Extreme). Devastation occurred in a 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi) area, causing extensive damage in several cities. A large aftershock also added to the destruction. Between 35,000

The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children