Natural disasters
A disaster is a natural or man-made event that negatively affects life, property, livelihood or industry often resulting in permanent changes to human societies, ecosystems and environment. Disasters manifest as hazards exacerbating vulnerable conditions and exceeding individuals' and communities' means to survive and thrive.Types of Natural disasters
A Natural phenomenon can easily turn into a natural disaster. Appearing to arise without direct human involvement, natural disasters are sometimes called an act of God. A natural disaster may become more severe because of human actions prior, during or after the disaster itself. A specific disaster may spawn different types of events and may reduce the survivability of the initial event. A classic example, is an earthquake that collapses homes, trapping people and breaking gas mains that then ignite, and burn people alive while trapped under debris. Human activity in risk areas may cause natural disasters. Volcanos are particularly prone to causing other events like fires, lahars, mudflows, landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis.Avalanche
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| AVALANCHE |
An avalanche is a slippage of built-up snow down an incline, possibly mixed with ice, rock, soil or plantlife in what is called a debris avalanche. Avalanches are categorized as either slab or powder avalanches. Avalanches are a major danger in the mountains during the winter as a large one can run for miles, and can create massive destruction of the lower forest and anything else in its path. For example, in Montroc, France, in 1999 300,000 cubic metres of snow slid on a 30 degree slope, achieving a speed of 100 km/h. It killed 12 people in their chalets under 100,000 tons of snow, 5 meters deep. The Mayor of Chamonix was charged with manslaughter.
Worst Case:
The Huascarán avalanche in Peru is considered the deadliest in history – it was triggered by the 1970 Ancash earthquake and killed more than 20,000 people.
| COLD |
Extreme cold snaps are hazardous to humans and their livestock. In a 2003 Mongolian cold snap, almost 30,000 livestock animals perished due to excessive snow and cold. When the temperature drops, caloric intake must increase to maintain body heat to for shivering.
Disease
Disease becomes a disaster when it spreads in a pandemic or epidemic as a massive outbreak of an infectious agent. Disease is historically the most dangerous of all natural disasters. Different epidemics are caused by different diseases, and different epidemics have included the Black Death, smallpox, and AIDS. The Spanish flu of 1918 was the deadliest ever epidemic, it killed 25-40 million people. The Black Death, which occurred in the 14th Century, killed over 20 million people, one third of Europe's population. Plant and animal life may also be affected by disease epidemics and pandemics.
Drought
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| Drought |
Worst Case:
The Horn of Africa witnessed the worst drought in 60 years in 2011, leaving more than 12.4 million people with limited to no food supply. Due to its impact, a draught has to be included in the list of natural disasters.
Earthquake
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| Earthquake Impact on Expressway |
An earthquake is a sudden shift or movement in the tectonic plate in the Earth's crust. On the surface, this is manifested by a moving and shaking of the ground, and can be massively damaging to poorly built structures. The most powerful earthquakes can destroy even the best built of structures. In addition, they can trigger secondary disasters, such as tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. Earthquakes occur along fault lines, and are unpredictable. They are capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people, such as in the 1976 Tangshan and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquakes.
Worst Case:
In 2008, the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Wenchuan, a county of Sichuan Province in China was devastating and killed over 61,150 people.
Famine
Famine is a natural disaster characterized by a widespread lack of food in a region, and can be characterized as a lack of agriculture foodstuffs, a lack of livestock, or a general lack of all foodstuffs required for basic nutrition and survival. Famine is almost always caused by pre-existing conditions, such as drought, but its effects may be exacerbated by social factors, such as war. Particularly devastating examples include the Ethiopian famine and the Irish Potato Famine.
Fire
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| FIRE |
A fire is a natural disaster that may destroy ecosystems like grasslands, forests causing great loss of life, property, livestock and wildlife. Bush fires, forest fires and mine fires are generally started by lightning, but also by human negligence or arson, and can burn thousands of square kilometers. An example of a severe forest fire is the Oakland Hills firestorm. A mine fire started in Centralia, Pennsylvania in 1962 decimated the town and continues to burn. Some of the biggest city fires are The Great Chicago Fire, The Great Fire of London, and The San Francisco Fire.
Worst Case:
The Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin is the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history with estimated deaths of over 2,500 people.
Flood
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| FLOOD |
A flood is a natural disaster caused by too much rain or water in a location, and could be caused by many different sets of conditions. Floods can be caused by prolonged rainfall from a storm, including thunderstorms, rapid melting of large amounts of snow, or rivers which swell from excess precipitation upstream and cause widespread damage to areas downstream, or less frequently the bursting of man-made dams. A river which floods particularly often is the Huang He in China, and a particularly damaging flood was the Great Flood of 1993.
Hail
| Hail |
A hailstorm is a natural disaster where a thunderstorm produces a numerous amount of hailstones which damage the location in which they fall. Hailstorms can be especially devastating to farm fields, ruining crops and damaging equipment. A particularly damaging hailstorm hit Munich, Germany on August 31, 1986, felling thousands of trees and causing millions of dollars in insurance claims. Skeleton Lake was named so after 300-600 people were killed by a hailstorm.
Heat
| HEAT |
A heat wave is a disaster characterized by heat which is considered extreme and unusual in the area in which it occurs. Heat waves are rare and require specific combinations of weather events to take place, and may include temperature inversions, katabatic winds, or other phenomena. The worst heat wave in recent history was the European Heat Wave of 2003.
Hurricane
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| Hurricane |
A hurricane is a low-pressure cyclonic storm system which forms over the oceans. It is caused by evaporated water which comes off of the ocean and becomes a storm. The Coriolis Effect causes the storms to spin, and a hurricane is declared when this spinning mass of storms attains a wind speed greater than 74mph. In different parts of the world hurricanes are known as cyclones or typhoons. The former occur in the Indian Ocean, while the latter occur in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The most damaging hurricane in the United States was Hurricane Katrina, which hit the United States Gulf Coast in 2005.
Worst Case:
Bhola cyclone that hit Bangladesh in 1970 is considered the deadliest since it caused the deaths of over 500,000 lives.
Impact event
| Impact event |
Impact events are caused by the collision of large meteoroids, asteroids or comets (generically: bolides) with Earth and may sometimes be followed by mass extinctions of life. The magnitude of the disaster is inversely proportional to its rate of occurrence, because small impactors are much more numerous than large ones.
Landslide
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| LandSlide |
A landslide is a disaster closely related to an avalanche, but instead of occurring with snow, it occurs involving actual elements of the ground, including rocks, trees, parts of houses, and anything else which may happen to be swept up. Landslides can be caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or general instability in the surrounding land. Mudslides, or mud flows, are a special case of landslides, in which heavy rainfall causes loose soil on steep terrain to collapse and slide downwards - these occur with some regularity in parts of California after periods of heavy rain. Mudslide A mudslide is a slippage of mud because of poor drainage of rainfall through soil. An underlying cause is often deforestation or lack of vegatation. Some mudslides are massive and can decimate large areas. On January 10, 2005 at 1:20pm in La Conchita, a massive mudslide buried four blocks of the town in over 30 feet of earth. Ten people were killed by the slide and 14 were injured. Of the 166 homes in the community, fifteen were destroyed and 16 more were tagged by the county as uninhabitable.
Sink hole
| Sink Hole |
A sinkhole is a localized depression in the surface topography, usually caused by the collapse of a subterranean structure, such as a cave. Although rare, large sinkholes that develop suddenly in populated areas can lead to the collapse of buildings and other structures.
Solar flare
A solar flare is a violent explosion in the Sun's atmosphere with an energy equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs. Solar flares take place in the solar corona and chromosphere, heating the gas to tens of millions of kelvins and accelerating electrons, protons and heavier ions to near the speed of light. They produce electromagnetic radiation across the spectrum at all wavelengths from long-wave radio signals to the shortest wavelength gamma rays. Solar flare emmissions are a danger to orbitting satellites, manned space missions, communications systems, and power grid systems.
Storm surge
| Storm surge |
A storm surge is an onshore rush of water associated with a low pressure weather system, typically a tropical cyclone. Storm surge is caused primarily by high winds pushing on the ocean's surface. The wind causes the water to pile up higher than the ordinary sea level. Storm surges are particularly damaging when they occur at the time of a high tide, combining the effects of the surge and the tide. The highest storm surge ever recorded was produced by the 1899 Bathurst Bay Hurricane, which caused a 13 m (43 feet) storm surge at Bathurst Bay, Australia. In the US, the greatest recorded storm surge was generated by Hurricane Camille, which produced a storm surge in excess of 25 feet (7.6 m).
Thunderstorm
| Thunderstorm |
A thunderstorm is a form of severe weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its attendant thunder, often accompanied by copious rainfall, hail and on occasion snowfall and tornadoes. Tornado A tornado is a natural disaster resulting from a thunderstorm. Tornadoes are violent currents of wind which can blow at up to 318mph. Tornadoes can occur one at a time, or can occur in large tornado outbreaks along a squall line. The worst tornado ever recorded in terms of wind speed was the tornado which swept through Moore, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. This tornado had wind speeds of 318mph and was the strongest ever recorded.
Tsunami
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| TSUNAMI |
A tsunami is a giant wave of water which rolls into the shore of an area with a height of over 15 m (50 ft). It comes from Japanese words meaning harbor and wave. Tsunamis can be caused by undersea earthquakes as in the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, or by landslides such as the one which occurred at Lituya Bay, Alaska. The tsunami generated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake currently ranks as the deadliest tsunami in recorded history.
Worst Case:
The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami is the deadliest of all time causing about 280,000 deaths.
Volcanic eruption
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| Volcanic eruption |
This natural disaster is caused by the eruption of a volcano, and eruptions come in many forms. They range from daily small eruptions which occur in places; like Kilauea, in Hawaii, or extremely infrequent supervolcano eruptions in places like Lake Toba. Recent large volcanic eruptions include that of Mount St. Helens and Krakatoa, occurring in 1980 and 1883, respectively.
Worst Case:
Indonesia witnessed the deadliest volcanic eruption in 1815 when Mount Tambora erupted and killed over 92,000 people.
Winter storm
| Winter Storm |
A snowstorm is a winter storm in which the primary form of precipitation is snow. When such a storm is accompanied by winds above 32 mph that severely reduce visibility, it becomes a blizzard. Hazards from snowstorms and blizzards include traffic-related accidents, hypothermia for those unable to find shelter, as well as major disruptions to transportation and fuel and power distribution systems.
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