The Worst World Disasters of All Time. Kevin Baker
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it had made its way to New York and the east coast. Like the 2009 pandemic, H1N1 came from birds, but in the case of the 1918 event, historians think that the virus first mutated to pigs which were kept in large quantities near soldiers as cheap sources of food. The origins were almost certainly somewhere in Europe, possibly France, and soldiers were the main carriers of the disease, spreading it around to the local population.
20 - 40 million people were killed in less than two years by the Spanish flu pandemic, which comes close to the Black Death’s fatality count, making it one of the most deadly diseases in history. While a lot of infants and elderly people were killed, as is the case for most diseases, in this case there were also a lot of 15 to 35 year olds included in the death toll, because soldiers were the main ones to carry the disease from one place to the next and generally would be in this age group. It is believed that India suffered the most deaths with a fatality count of 17 million people. The disease ended very abruptly by the end of 1918, where cases rapidly disappeared, as doctors became better at treating the disease. Some historians also think that the virus mutated to a less deadly variant at that time as well.
7 – Minamata Mercury Poisoning
Minamata Memorial Site.
Date: 1956 onward.
Location: Minamata City, Japan.
Disaster Type: Poisoning.
Fatalities: 2,265 officially recognised victims.
Resulting Damage: Mercury contaminated waters over a large area.
The industrial revolution of the past century brought the world into a modern age where factories could create goods at a much faster pace, and technology could advance further than ever thought possible before. But this revolution didn't just bring good consequences. It also had some very nasty side effects. One potential problem that occurs when a city gets industrialized with factories and shops is the production of waste chemicals and the problem of where to dispose them. In 1956, Japanese authorities had no idea of the disaster that was about to unfold when the Chisso Corporation upgraded its factories in the town of Minamata. As part of the process of producing chemical products, the company ended up dumping large amounts of unwanted mercury into the nearby water sources.
Mercury is a very poisonous substance which can cause a lot of disturbing side effects. Typically, mercury levels are regulated so that we do not come into contact with any high quantities of the substance, but back then people had no idea of what was happening. The plant itself had a good reputation, and had been opened since 1908. Initially, the plant produced fertilizers, but the company branched out and started to produce all kinds of other chemicals, including acetylene, acetic acid and octanol. The factory was carelessly dumping its waste into the Minamata Bay and there was nothing or nobody to stop them.
The first symptoms appeared in April of 1956, where children were found to have problems walking, speaking and were also having convulsions. A very large number of people were hospitalized, and as more cases were found, an epidemic alert was sounded in the region. As doctors and professionals investigated the disease, they learned that pets had been suffering similar symptoms for years in the area, and they finally pin-pointed the source of the problem to be the nearby bay, since all the initial victims lived near fishing huts. It wasn’t until November however for the cause to be identified as a heavy metal, and they immediately suspected the mercury in the waste water that was being dumped into the bay.
It took until 1959 for the investigation to be fully completed, and the results shocked the scientists who were involved. Very high quantities were found in nearby fish, and the quantity of mercury was so high at the mount of the waste canal that it was determined that it would be viable to mine the waste and sell the mercury, which the company eventually did. Meanwhile, Chisso did not cooperate with the investigation. Instead, it tried to hide the cause of the disease by changing its waste canal, sending it to a nearby river instead of the bay. The result was that fish in that river died, and more people became contaminated up and down the river. In the end, almost 2,000 people died, and many more were sick. The company was forced to pay off small sums to fishermen, but these payments paled in comparison to the losses suffered. In 1965, the disease came back in another nearby region due to another company releasing mercury waste.
The 1970s were the beginning of a new wave of reform in Japan. In 1971, a Ministry of Environment was put together by the government, along with fourteen new environmental laws. Businesses had to use clean methods to get rid of any chemicals or pollutants from that time onward. At that time, Japan had the strictest antipollution measures in the world.
8 – USS Indianapolis
USS Indianapolis.
Date: 30th July 1945.
Location: Philippine Sea.
Disaster Type: Multiple shark attacks, drowning, dehydration and saltwater poisoning.
Fatalities: 879
In 1945, on the 30th of July, the USS Indianapolis was out taking part in Pacific fleet operations, helping in the war effort. The day was calm and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But that day would turn out to become one of the worst naval tragedies for the U.S. during World War II, and one of the worst shark attack events ever.
Just a few days earlier, this very ship was the one that delivered the atomic bomb to Tinian Island, but now in the early morning, the enemy spotted the ship, and launched torpedoes at it. Within minutes it became clear that the vessel would not survive. The alarm sounded, and everyone rushed outside and down into the waters. From the initial hit, around 900 crew members made it off the ship alive, escaping the inferno that raged inside. Unfortunately for them, this would turn out to be only the start of their troubles.
The core issue was that when the ship was hit, all of its communication systems went out, preventing it from sending out a distress call. No one knew what had happened besides the crew, and the sailors were out at sea in the middle of nowhere, and the wait would have to be long and painful. It took over four days for the first rescue ship to get there, but by the early morning hours of the first day sharks were already on the scene. The bloodbath started as soon as the sun rose up past the horizon on the 30th, and out of the 900 people floating there, only 317 were rescued alive.
The story is told most accurately by the account of Woody Eugene James, a sailor who survived that day; one of 317 survivors from the 1,196 crew members that were on board. According to Eugene's story, on the first day most people were in groups, hanging on to lifeboats, floating debris, and anything that they could find. They did head counts, and in his particular group, there were around 150 men. The waters were not too freezing, and the sea was calm, so at first there was no real panic. While there had been no message sent out, they were expected in the Philippines, so other ships would be bound to look for them at some point.
When the sharks were first spotted, it took a while before any attacked. The sharks clearly investigated their prey for a while. But by the time the attacks started, there were hundreds of them, all eager for human flesh. There were constant screams, and while the sharks started to attack during the day, they did not stop at night. People were hungry and thirsty, and fights broke out between the survivors.
On the fourth day when a plane noticed them, at first it flew by, but then it came back, and the men knew it had spotted them. It landed in the water and picked up some survivors, and later that night ships arrived to pick up the rest.
9 – Hurricane Katrina
Flooding in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.
Date: August 23rd - September 3rd 2005.
Location: The Bahamas,