This world is a beautiful and wonderful place. On the other hand, there are several parts of the world where natural disasters often devastates too many lives and properties. Only the people who are living in such countries that do not come across these earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters happen to name their region ‘heaven on earth’. For some of them out there, this world is a cruel and brutal place to stay. Others may feel that their land is cursed and that is the reason they are experiencing such natural disasters that are truly destructive. Following are just 10 of the world's worst natural disasters.
An earthquake under the sea with an intensity of 9.2 in Richter scale in 2004 caused extremely large waves that turned into a tsunami, reaching up to 30 meters. The calamitous waves hit Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and Indonesia on December 26. The United Nations reported more than 230,000 casualties. In the history of the entire world, this happens to be one of the most devastating and destructive disasters.
This is one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever have hit the United States and it is considered to be one of the country’s worst natural disasters. It happened back in year 2005 and resulted in the destruction of lives of around 1,836 American citizens along with destroying millions of properties. It may not be the biggest in number of deaths but the area of devastation was truly shocking.
The Nargis Cyclone in 2008 is, in the history of Myanmar, rated as one of the strongest and deadliest cyclones that happened. The death toll as a result reached up to 146,000 and not just because of the cyclone but also due to the Myanmar government’s negligence of the country’s infrastructure.
This earthquake jolted China in 2008 and resulted in severe damage to properties and establishments along with the death of more than 87,400 individuals.
In 2005, an earthquake of 7.6 intensity hit the region of Kashmir in North India on October 8. The estimated casualties figure was approximately 79,000 deaths along with millions of properties and establishments destroyed.
In the start of year 2010, another earthquake that killed thousands of people hit Haiti and the island nation hasn’t even really begun to recover from one of the worst natural disasters ever. Over 300,000 lives were lost.
The central China Floods occurred in year 1932 and is considered to be one of the most deadliest and fatal natural disasters that have ever been recorded and certainly the greatest disaster ever to happen in China.
An exceptionally big cyclone hit the region of Coringa, India in 1893. This happened on the 25th of November when a storm surge absolutely ruined the city and the surrounding villages.
In 1887, the Yellow River in China flooded and it devastated the entire land for an area of 50,000 square miles. It killed around 900,000-2,000,000 people.
The Shaanxi earthquake happened in 1556 and is considered to be one of the deadliest earthquakes and worst natural disasters ever. The earthquake hit China on February 14th. The Wei River Valley was the epicenter and around 97 other countries were affected by the tremors.
Did you notice how the recent Japanese earthquake didn’t make the list of the worst natural disasters? Thankfully (!) due to Japan’s ingenuity and state of preparedness for earthquakes the death toll was a great deal lower than it could have been (Just over 15,000 although some 9,000 are still missing).
Modern communications and technology made that event so very real to us and shocked us to our very core so can you imagine just how massive these other events were?
Top Photo Credit: Charlottine'sPics