Deadliest Natural Disasters

Not to minimize, which would be absurd, but to put into perspective.

About.com article from the USGS

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake at Mount Huascaran, Peru, on May 21, 1970, triggered a rock and snow avalanche that buried the towns of Yungay and Ranrahirca, killing perhaps as many as 20,000 people[...]rain-caused landslides that hit Venezuela in mid-December of this year; official estimates are as high as 30,000 deaths [...] a magnitude 9.5 event that struck Chile on May 22, 1960. More than 2,000 people were killed in Chile, Hawaii, Japan, and the Philippines from this earthquake and the deadly tsunami that the earthquake created[...]a magnitude 8.0 that struck Tianjin , China, on July 27, 1976. The official casualty figure issued by the Chinese government was 255,000, but unofficial estimates of the death toll were as high as 655,000.[...] Mont Pelée in Martinique, Lesser Antilles, in 1902. The coastal town of St. Pierre, about 4 miles downslope to the south, was demolished, and nearly 30,000 inhabitants were killed by an incandescent, high-velocity ash flow and associated hot gases and volcanic dust.

The Wikipedia on Deadliest Natural Disasters

Tropical Cyclone 05B (1999), killed around 10,000 people in the Orissa state of India [...]Great Storm of 1703 (November 24 - December 2) 8,000 died.

Again, not trying to say that the destruction of the City of New Orleans is somehow lessened because of all of this. I do want to point out that disasters happen, and its damned foolish of people to think that the don't or at least won't. I recall a lot of criticism of india and indonesia for not having pacific tsunami monitors. It was idiotic of them not too. It was also simply insane for the US to not have better systems in place to protect places like New Orleans. And inspite of this disaster the US still will not develop adequate systems to protect, prevent, and deal with the aftermath of massive flooding of the mississippi valley, atlantic tsunamis, plate earthquakes on the west coast, volcanic eruptions in the yellowstone. People live in extremely dangerous places, and live there completely ignorantly and blindly of the incredible threat of death and absolute destruction. This disaster isn't going to make any difference in policy or awareness, I suspect, and when the next, upcomming, disaster occurs, there will be the same havoc and misery that we are seeing right now. The pompeians were surprised when vesuvius erupted, that was nearly 2,000 years ago and people still haven't adjusted properly. Heck its taught in school books, and people read it and shake their heads saying 'what did they expect'.

[edit on 2-9-2005 by Nygdan]