A natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard (e.g., flood, tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption, earthquake, heatwave, or landslide). It leads to financial, environmental or human losses. The resulting loss depends on the vulnerability of the affected population to resist the hazard, also called their resilience.[1] This understanding is concentrated in the formulation: "disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability."[2] Thus a natural hazard will not result in a natural disaster in areas without vulnerability, e.g. strong earthquakes in uninhabited areas.[3] The term natural has consequently been disputed because the events simply are not hazards or disasters without human involvement.[4] A concrete example of the division between a natural hazard and a natural disaster is that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was a disaster, whereas earthquakes are a hazard. This article gives an introduction to notable natural disasters, refer to the list of natural disasters for a comprehensive listing.
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During World War I, an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 soldiers died as a result of avalanches during the mountain campaign in the Alps at the Austrian-Italian front, many of which were caused by artillery fire.[5]
Notable avalanches include:
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by vibration, shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground. The vibrations may vary in magnitude. Earthquakes are caused mostly by slippage within geological faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear tests. The underground point of origin of the earthquake is called the focus. The point directly above the focus on the surface is called the epicenter. Earthquakes by themselves rarely kill people or wildlife. It is usually the secondary events that they trigger, such as building collapse, fires, tsunamis (seismic sea waves) and volcanoes, that are actually the human disaster. Many of these could possibly be avoided by better construction, safety systems, early warning and evacuation planning.
Some of the most significant earthquakes in recent times include:
Volcanoes can cause widespread destruction and consequent disaster through several ways. The effects include the volcanic eruption itself that may cause harm following the explosion of the volcano or the fall of rock. Second, lava may be produced during the eruption of a volcano. As it leaves the volcano, the lava destroys many buildings and plants it encounters. Third, volcanic ash generally meaning the cooled ash - may form a cloud, and settle thickly in nearby locations. When mixed with water this forms a concrete-like material. In sufficient quantity ash may cause roofs to collapse under its weight but even small quantities will harm humans if inhaled. Since the ash has the consistency of ground glass it causes abrasion damage to moving parts such as engines. The main killer of humans in the immediate surroundings of a volcanic eruption is the pyroclastic flows, which consist of a cloud of hot volcanic ash which builds up in the air above the volcano and rushes down the slopes when the eruption no longer supports the lifting of the gases. It is believed that Pompeii was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow. A lahar is a volcanic mudflow or landslide. The 1953 Tangiwai disaster was caused by a lahar, as was the 1985 Armero tragedy in which the town of Armero was buried and an estimated 23,000 people were killed.
A specific type of volcano is the supervolcano. According to the Toba catastrophe theory 70 to 75 thousand years ago a super volcanic event at Lake Toba reduced the human population to 10,000 or even 1,000 breeding pairs creating a bottleneck in human evolution.[7] It also killed three quarters of all plant life in the northern hemisphere. The main danger from a supervolcano is the immense cloud of ash which has a disastrous global effect on climate and temperature for many years.
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land.[8] The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water.[9] In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees, with the result that some of the water escapes its usual boundaries.[10] While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow melt, it is not a significant flood unless such escapes of water endanger land areas used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area.
Some of the most notable floods include:
Tropical cyclones can result in extensive flooding and storm surge, as happened with:
A limnic eruption occurs when a gas, usually CO2, suddenly erupts from deep lake water, posing the threat of suffocating wildlife, livestock and humans. Such an eruption may also cause tsunamis in the lake as the rising gas displaces water. Scientists believe landslides, volcanic activity, or explosions can trigger such an eruption. To date, only two limnic eruptions have been observed and recorded:
Tsunamis can be caused by undersea earthquakes as the one caused in Ao Nang, Thailand, by the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, or by landslides such as the one which occurred at Lituya Bay, Alaska.
Blizzards are severe winter storms characterized by low temperature, strong winds, and heavy snow. The difference between a blizzard and a snow storm is the strength of the wind. To be a considered a blizzard, the storm must have winds in excess of 35 miles per hour, it should reduce the visibility to 1/4 miles, and must last for a prolonged period of 3 hours or more. Ground blizzards require high winds to stir up snow that has already fallen, rather than fresh snowfall. Blizzards have a negative impact on local economics and can terminate the visibility in regions where snowfall is rare.
Significant blizzards include:
Cyclone, tropical cyclone, hurricane, and typhoon are different names for the same phenomenon a cyclonic storm system that forms over the oceans. The deadliest hurricane ever was the 1970 Bhola cyclone; the deadliest Atlantic hurricane was the Great Hurricane of 1780 which devastated Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados. Another notable hurricane is Hurricane Katrina which devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005.
Drought occurs when rainfall is insufficient to maintain river flow and ground-water levels fall to such an extent that water becomes unavailable or almost unavailable to support life. The formal definition of drought varies from area to area.
Well-known historical droughts include:
Hailstorms are rain drops that have formed together into ice. A particularly damaging hailstorm hit Munich, Germany, on July 12, 1984, causing about 2 billion dollars in insurance claims.
The worst heat wave in recent history was the European Heat Wave of 2003.
A summer heat wave in Victoria, Australia, created conditions which fuelled the massive bushfires in 2009. Melbourne experienced three days in a row of temperatures exceeding 40°C with some regional areas sweltering through much higher temperatures. The bushfires, collectively known as "Black Saturday", were partly the act of arsonists.
The 2010 Northern Hemisphere summer resulted in severe heat waves, which killed over 2,000 people. It resulted in hundreds of wildfires which causing widespread air pollution, and burned thousands of square miles of forest.
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone,[11] although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider sense, to name any closed low pressure circulation. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (177 km/h), are approximately 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 mph (480 km/h), stretch more than two miles (3 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km).[12][13][14]
Well-known historical tornadoes include:
Wildfires are an uncontrolled fire burning in wildland areas. Common causes include lightning and drought but wildfires may also be started by human negligence or arson. They can be a threat to those in rural areas and also wildlife.
Notable cases of wildfires were the 1871 Peshtigo Fire in the United States, which killed at least 1700 people, and the 2009 Victorian bushfires in Australia.
An epidemic is an outbreak of a contractible disease that spreads at a rapid rate through a human population. A pandemic is an epidemic whose spread is global. There have been many epidemics throughout history, such as Black Death. In the last hundred years, significant pandemics include:
Other diseases that spread more slowly, but are still considered to be global health emergencies by the WHO include:
In modern times, famine has hit Sub-Saharan Africa the hardest, although the number of victims of modern famines is much smaller than the number of people killed by the Asian and European famines of the 20th century.
One of the largest impact events in modern times was the Tunguska event in June 1908.
A solar flare is a phenomenon where the sun suddenly releases a great amount of solar radiation, much more than normal. Some known solar flares include:
Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions that occur in the universe. They release an enormous amount of energy in milliseconds or longing for ten seconds. They release the same energy that the Sun would have given in its whole life or even more than that. Gamma ray bursts are not rare events because they occur about once every day and are detected by telescopes both on Earth and in space. Mostly large masses of stars, bigger than the Sun, can produce a GRB. A GRB of distances nearer than 8000 light years may cause a concern to life on Earth. Mainly Wolf-Rayet stars WR 104 can produce GRB. Astronomers do believe that the Ordovician–Silurian extinction, the second most destructive extinction on Earth, might have been due to a GRB.
International law, for example Geneva Conventions defines International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, requires that "States shall take, in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including the occurrence of natural disaster."[18] And further United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is formed by General Assembly Resolution 44/182.
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