The Worst World Disasters of All Time. Kevin Baker
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The Worst World Disasters
Of All Time
Author: Kevin Baker
Editing: Jayne Baker
Article contributors: Jayne Baker, Rebekah White, Octavian Ristea, Max Abramson, Rob, Mary & Dendory
Copyright 2014 Kevin Baker
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2343-2
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Only CC images in the public domain, unless otherwise stated, have been used in this book.
This book is dedicated to Arthur T. Bradley who has given myself and many others invaluable advice on disaster survival preparation and survival techniques.
1 – Introduction
I have included the most significant disasters throughout history that I have come across whilst researching for this book. Although choosing which disasters to feature in this book was still a subjective process. After all, how can you really grade a disaster? As this depends on each individual’s perspective. So I have included disasters that have had a profound effect on the world or disasters with a high number of fatalities. There have been so many wars throughout recent history alone, especially after the industrial revolution, so I have kept away from chalking up every war as a disaster in this book. The only war that I could not help but mention in this book was World War 2, as this war gave rise to new technologies that threaten us today. If I included WW2 then how could I not include The Great War? So, these two wars are exceptions. I have also mentioned events that have happened as a result of war and prejudice or politics that have had a devastating effect on innocent civilians, such as the persecution of the Jews in World War 2 for instance.
I hope that this book will serve as a reminder that this world is turbulent and unpredictable, and that peace and tranquillity in our lives should never be taken for granted. Each peaceful morning when we wake up with a stress free day filled with happiness ahead of us really is a bonus.
2 – Latiya Bay Megatsunami
The aftermath of the 1,720 ft high megatsunami
Date: July 9th, 1958.
Location: Latuya Bay, Alaska
Disaster Type: Megatsunami
Fatalities: 5
Resulting Damage: 4.5 Square miles of forest flattened.
Although there were just five deaths from the Lituya Bay magatsunami in 1958, I've included this occurrence as it gives an idea of the destructive force of a megatsunami and demonstrates how nature can suddenly throw unexpected surprises at us.
Can you picture being on a boat and hearing what sounds like an atomic explosion, then being met head on by a 1,720 feet high wall of water? This is exactly what happened to Howard G.Ulrich and his son who were anchored in a small cove. After being woken up by violent rocking of his boat due to an 8.3 magnitude earthquake on the Fairweather Fault, he then went on deck to see what was going on. Following that, 30 million cubic meters of rock and ice fell into the narrow inlet in Lituya Bay, Alaska. Fortunately, they were then miraculously carried by the wave over treetops as the wave crossed land and then dropped them back in the water safely on the other side of the land mass.
Not everyone was lucky on the day that the megatsunami occurred on July the 9th, 1958. Two other people who were anchored in the bay on their boat were killed; three other people also died when the beach that they were standing on suddenly subsided to 100 feet below sea level.
The force of the wave ripped out trees and plant life over a 4.5 square mile area of dense forest, from elevations up to 1,720 feet above sea level. Millions of trees were just swept out to sea. It is the highest wave ever known in recorded history. Lituya Bay has regularly produced tsunamis over 100 feet ; in 1854 a wave of 395 feet occurred, a 200 foot wave in 1899 and a 490 foot wave in 1936. Put it this way, you wouldn't want to build a house there. The shockwave from this megatsunami was felt in Seattle all the way to Yukon in Canada; an area of 400,000 square miles.
About 8,000 years ago in Sicily there was a huge landslide triggered by gushing lava which hit the ocean at 200 miles per hour. Verbal accounts and work from researchers suggest that the wave that spread across the Mediterranean Sea was probably as tall as a ten story building.
On a lighter note, the biggest wave ever surfed was by Garrett McNamara who surfed a wave off the coast of Portugal which was a staggering 100 feet tall.
3 – Death Hailstorms
A giant hailstone, that fell in Vivian, South Dakota, 2010.
Date: 850 AD.
Location: Roopkund Lake, India.
Disaster Type: Giant hailstones.
Fatalities: Hundreds of victims.
In 1942 a British forest guard stationed in northern India came across a strange frozen lake named Roopkund. The reason why the lake was such a shocking sight was that it was surrounded by hundreds of skeletons. From that moment on the discovery was a complete mystery, with the British government paranoid that it might be the bones of Japanese soldiers who were planning a land invasion, and others guessing that it was an epidemic, a landslide or mass suicide.
In 2004 a scientific expedition was sent to seek out an explanation as to how so many people died. After investigation, the surprising conclusion was that everyone had died from blows upon the head, with deep cracks clearly evident on the skulls of the victims.
What had actually happened is that back in around 850 AD a group of travelers, probably pilgrims, were caught out in the open with no shelter by a freak hailstorm with oversized hail. Can you imagine hail the size of cricket balls suddenly raining down upon you? The only way you would ever survive would be to crawl under a dead body, but there probably would have been no time as your body would take a series of lethal blows before you would even be able to consider this.
They could even have been bigger than cricket balls, as the largest recorded hailstone, found in Aurora, Nebraska, was about the size of a football at 7 inches in diameter.
In Bangladesh, almost 100 people were killed in 1986 by grapefruit sized hailstones that weighed more than 2 pounds. Hailstones can fall at a hundred miles per hour, so unless you have immediate shelter your number will be up!
The largest amount of people known to be killed in a freak hailstorm was in Chartres, France in 1360. A staggering 1,000 English soldiers were killed in the event and it was named ‘Black Monday.’ In King Edward’s attempt to conquer France he took a massive force across the English Channel. They burned and pillaged the suburbs of Paris, whilst French soldiers refused to fight them head on by instead choosing to remain behind protective walls. They then headed toward Chartres and camped outside of town. Lightening then struck down at the beginning of a sudden storm and killed 2 people, before massive hailstones hit the stunned troops, even killing men on horseback.
The upside to this is that it was seen as an act of God, which convinced King Edward to negotiate on peaceful terms with the French, at least for a while, during the Hundred Years War between England