Timeline of Disasters and Tragedies
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16 worst since 1000 CE listed at end of file.
65 Million BP
The asteroid that struck Earth wiped out the dinosaurs, about 80% of
the world’s plants species and all animals bigger than a cat. In 2002
it also was estimated to have wiped out 55-60% of the plant-eating
insects. A high oxygen level may have contributed to a worldwide
fire-storm.
(SFC, 2/25/02, p.A4)(NH, Jul, p.62)
365CE Jul 21, An earthquake
leveled the Egyptian Port of Alexandria and some 50,000 died.
(MC, 7/21/02)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.18)
526CE May 29, Antioch, Turkey, was
struck by an earthquake and about 250,000 died. [see May 20]
(AM, 11/00, p.69)(SC, 5/29/02)
1190 Mar 17, Crusaders completed
the massacre of Jews of York, England.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1201 Jul 5, An earthquake in Syria
and upper Egypt killed some 1.1 million people.
(www.geohaz.org/member/news/signif.htm)
1219 Jan 16, Floods followed a
storm in Northern Netherlands and thousands were killed.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1287 Dec 14, The Zuider Zee
seawall collapsed with the loss of 50,000 lives.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1456 Dec 5, Earthquake struck
Naples and 35,000 died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1531 Jan 26, Lisbon was hit by an
earthquake and some about 30,000 died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1556 Feb 2, The worst earthquake
in history devastated China’s Shanxi Province, killing 830,000 people.
(PCh, 1992,
p.190)(www.kepu.ac.cn/english/quake/ruins/rns03.html)
1570 Nov 2, A tidal wave in the
North Sea destroyed the sea walls from Holland to Jutland. Over a
thousand people are killed.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1607 Jan 30, A sudden flood around
the Bristol Channel in southwest Britain killed at least 2,000 people.
It was the worst natural disaster ever recorded in Britain.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.101)
1626 Jul 30, An earthquake hit
Naples and some 10,000 died.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1630 Nov 30, 16,000 inhabitants of
Venice died this month of plague.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1648 Jul 22, Some 10,000 Jews of
Polannoe were murdered in a massacre led by Cossack Bogdan Chmielnicki
(55).
(PC, 1992, p.241)(MC, 7/22/02)
1669 Mar 11, Mount Etna in Sicily
erupted killing 15,000. [see Mar 25]
(MC, 3/12/02)
1669 Mar 25, Mount Etna, Sicily,
erupted and destroyed Nicolosi, killing 20,000. [see Mar 11]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1703 Nov 26-27, Heavy storms hit
England and 1000s were killed. Bristol, England, was damaged by the
hurricane. The Royal Navy lost 15 warships.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1703 Dec 30, Tokyo was hit by
Earthquake and some 37,000 people died.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1709 Jan 5, Sudden extreme cold
killed 1000s of Europeans.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1737 Sep 19, In India’s Bay of
Bengal a cyclone destroyed some 20,000 ships. It was esti-mated that
more than 300,000 people died in the densely populated area called the
Sundar-bans. Later research indicated the population of Calcutta at the
time to be around 20,000. An estimate of the number of deaths was
revised down to about 3,000.
(http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/gif_images/1737Calcutta.pdf)
1746 Oct 28, The Peruvian cities
of Lima and Callao were demolished by an earthquake. 18,000 died.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1755 Nov 1, An 8.7 earthquake hit
Lisbon, Portugal, and killed some 70,000 people. Heavy damage resulted
from ensuing fires and tsunami flooding in Morocco and nearly a quarter
of a million people were killed.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T7)(HN,
11/1/98)(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmosde.html)
1769 Aug 18, Gunpowder in Brescia,
Italy, church exploded and some 3,000 were killed.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1772 Aug 11, An explosive eruption
blew 4,000 feet off Papandayan, Java, and 3,000 people were killed.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1775 Mar 19, In Italy 4 people
were buried by avalanche for 37 days and 3 survived. [not clear if this
was the date of the avalanche or the recovery date.]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1789 Dec, In India’s city of
Coringa 3 tidal waves caused by a cyclone destroyed the harbor city at
the mouth of the Ganges river. Most ships were sunk and some 20,000
people drowned.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1797 Feb 4, Earthquake in Quito,
Ecuador, killed 41,000.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1800 Mar 17, English warship Queen
Charlotte caught fire and 700 people died.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1804 Mar 29, Thousands of whites
were massacred in Haiti.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1805 Jul 26, Naples and Calabria
were struck by an earthquake and some 26,000 died.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1810 Dec 22, British frigate
Minotaur sank killing 480.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1812 Mar 26, Earthquake destroyed
90% of Caracas; about 20,000 died.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1815 Apr 5, Mount Tambora on
Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, in the Java Sea erupted. One-third of the
13,000 foot mountain was blasted into the air. Some 50,000 islanders
were killed and the whole planet was shrouded in a debris of sulfuric
droplets.
(NOHY, 3/90,
p.41)(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9071099)
1835 Feb 20, Concepcion, Chile,
was destroyed by earthquake and some 5,000 died.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1837 Jan 22, An earthquake in
southern Syria killed thousands.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1837 May 9, "Sherrod" burned in
Mississippi River below Natchez, Miss., and 175 died.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1839 Nov, In India’s city Coringa
a gigantic 40-foot tidal wave caused by an enormous cy-clone wiped out
the harbor city that was never entirely rebuilt; 20,000 vessels in the
bay were destroyed and some 300,000 people died.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1840 May 7, A tornado struck
Natchez, Miss., and killed 317.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1841 Sep 9, The Great Lakes
steamer "Erie" sank off Silver Creek, NY., and 300 people died.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1847 Nov 21, Steamer "Phoenix" was
lost on Lake Michigan. 200 people were killed.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1850 Mar 29, Ireland's SS Royal
Adelaide sank in storm and 200 people died.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1850 Sep 22, An earthquake in
Sichuan, China, killed some 300,000 people.
(www.geohaz.org/member/news/signif.htm)
1852 Aug 20, The steamer
"Atlantic" collided on Lake Erie with the fishing boat Ogdensburg, and
sank. An estimated 150-250 people were drowned.
(MC, 8/20/02)(Internet)
1853 May 6, The 1st major US rail
disaster killed 46 at Norwalk, Connecticut.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1854 Jan 5, The steamship San
Francisco wrecked and 300 died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1854 Mar 1, The SS City of Glasgow
left Liverpool harbor and was never seen again.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1854 Apr 15, The immigrant steamer
ship "Powchattan" (Powhattan) struck Brigantine Shoals and sank off
Long Beach, NY. Over 300 people died.
(www.maritimeheritage.org/PassLists/js051854.html)
1854 Sep 27, The first great
disaster involving an ocean liner in the Atlantic occurred when the
steamship Arctic sank off the coast of Newfoundland with 300 people
aboard. It had collided in heavy fog with the French ship Vesta.
(AP, 9/27/97)(Arch, 7/02, p.7)(Arch, 9/02, p.6)
1854 Nov 13, "New Era" sank off
New Jersey coast with loss of 300.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1855 Jan 9, The clipper ship
Guiding Star disappeared in Atlantic and 480 died.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1856 Apr 3, Gunpowder in church
exploded killing 4,000 in Rhodes.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1857 Mar 21, An earthquake hit
Tokyo and about 107,000 died.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1857 Sep 12, A wooden-hulled
steamship, the SS Central America under Capt. William L. Herndon, sank
off the coast of Georgia. The ship carried 21 tons of gold from
California to New York. The brig Marine and the Norwegian bark Ellen
rescued some 141 people. 425 (428) of 528 (578) passengers were
drowned. The survivors included Ansel Ives Easton (d.1868) and his new
wife Adeline. The wreck was in 8,000 feet of water and in 1987-1988
salvage opera-tions were begun by Tommy Thompson. He hauled in $500
million worth of gold bars, coins and nuggets. After a court battle he
was awarded 92% of the gold. The story is told in the 1998 book "Ship
of Gold in the Deep Blue sea" by Gary Kinder. The loss of the gold
sparked "The Panic of 1857." The SS Central America sank off Cape
Romain, SC.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W3)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(SFEC,
6/28/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.B1)(ON, 7/01,
p.2)(MC, 9/12/01)(Ind, 12/1/01, 5A)
1859 Apr 27, "Pomona" sank in
North Atlantic drowning all 400 aboard.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1863 Dec 8, A Jesuit church in
Chile caught fire and 2,500 died in a panic.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1864 Mar 18, The Dale Dike on
Humber River, England, crumbled drowning some 240.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1864 Oct 5, Calcutta, India, was
denuded by a cyclone and some 70,000 people were killed.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1865 Apr 27, The steamer Sultana
caught fire and burned after one of its boilers exploded on the
Mississippi River near Memphis, Tenn., killing more than 1,400 paroled
Union prisoners on their way home. One account reported 1,547 people
dead. At least 1,238 of the 2,031 passen-gers, mostly former Union
POWs, were killed.
(AP, 4/27/97)(SFC, 3/13/99, p.E6)(HN, 4/27/99)(MC,
4/27/02)
1865 Jul 30, The worst US
steamship disaster occurred. The Brother Jonathon, a paddle wheel
steamer, sank off the coast of Northern California near Crescent City.
225 people died after the ship hit a rock near Crescent City. There
were 19 survivors. The 220-foot, side-wheeled steamer was on route to
Puget Sound and reportedly carried as much as $2 million in gold. In
the 1990s Deep Sea Research found and salvaged 1,207 gold coins from
the ship. California received 20% of the treasure and the rest was put
up for auction in 1999.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_%28steamer%29)(SFC,
7/18/96, p.A18)(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A4)(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A6)(SFC, 5/28/99,
p.D7)(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A27)
1866 Jan 11, Steamship London sank
in storm off Land's End England and 220 people died.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1866 Mar 19, The immigrant ship
Monarch of the Seas sank in Liverpool; 738 died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1869 Sep 6, 110 miners, a number
of them young boys, were killed in coal mine disaster which occurred
early in the morning in Avondale, Pennsylvania, when a fire broke out
in a mineshaft, cutting off the miners' escape route and their only
source of air.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1869 A fire at Yellow Jacket Mine
near Virginia City, Nevada, killed 45 people.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T7)
1870 Jun 5, A fire in
Constantinople killed some 900 people.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1870 Oct 19, The British SS
Cambria left for the North Sea coast. 196 were killed.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1871 Aug 26, The Boston Revere
Railroad Depot collision left 32 people dead on a single track railroad
with no telegraph communications.
(THC, 12/2/97)
1871 Oct 8, Around 9 p.m. on
Sunday a fire broke out in or near Patrick and Catherine O'Leary's barn
in the crowded southwestern section of Chicago. The fire may or may not
have been started by the O'Learys' cow kicking over a lantern. Fanned
by high winds, the fire burned out of control in the tinder-dry city
for more than 24 hours, until rain on Tuesday morning finally
extinguished the flames. Three and a half square miles were leveled
wiping out one-third of the city. The business district, the courthouse
and the central water pumping station, burned to the ground. Thousands
of Chicagoans fled the flames over the Randolph Street Bridge.
Approxi-mately 250 people were killed in the fire; 98,500 people were
left homeless; 17,450 buildings were destroyed. The original
Emancipation Proclamation was destroyed. Yet in spite of the
devastation, the city was so quickly rebuilt that by 1875, few traces
of the fire remained. Evi-dence suggests it was not Mrs. O'Leary's cow
that started the blaze. Many people still believe that Mrs.
O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern which started the fire. The Chicago
City Council once passed a resolution exonerating the cow and
apologizing to the O'Leary family.
(HNPD, 10/8/98)(HN, 10/8/98)(MC, 10/8/01)
1871 Oct 8-14, In Peshtigo, Wisc.,
some 1,500 people were killed in the nation’s worst forest fire, which
burned across six counties and into Michigan.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(WSJ, 8/4/04, p.B1)(SSFC,
9/4/05, p.A7)
1872 At a Memphis warehouse, a
cask of molasses burst open on a loading dock and a wall of goo eight
feet tall slowly surged downhill toward the Mississippi River. It
caught a dozen slow-moving pedestrians unawares.
(HFA, ‘96, p.71)
1872-1874 More than 4 million buffalo were killed by
white hunters.
(HNPD, 8/21/98)
1873 Apr 1, The British White Star
steamship Atlantic, enroute to NYC from Liverpool with 811 passengers
under Capt. James Agnew Williams (33), sank off Nova Scotia killing 565
peo-ple, mostly women and children. A court of inquiry suspended
Williams for 2 years.
(ON, 4/03, p.7)
1875 May 7, German SS Schiller
sank near Scilly Islands and 312 were killed.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1875 Nov 4, "Pacific" collided
with "Orpheus" off Cape Flattery, Wash., and 236 people died.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1876 Oct 31, In India’s Megna
River Delta a tidal wave caused by a cyclone flooded the river delta
and the city of Backergunge. Some areas became covered with 40 feet of
water. 100,000 people drowned and another 100,000 were reported to have
perished from subsequent dis-eases caused by polluted water.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1876 Dec 5, In NYC a fire in the
Brooklyn Theater killed over 300 people. The fire left 295 people
trampled or burned to death.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(MC, 12/5/01)
1876 Dec 29, In the Ashtabula
train disaster a Pacific Express, carrying some 159 passen-gers and
crew, was traveling over a bridge near Ashtabula, Ohio. Only the first
engine of the train made it to the other side at 7:28 p.m. as the
bridge began to collapse. The rest of the train broke away and
plummeted to the bottom of the ravine below. Approximately 92 men,
women and children were killed. The bridge was owned by the Lake Shore
and Michigan railroad, and was the joint creation of Charles Collins,
Engineer, and Amasa Stone, Chief Architect and De-signer. After
testifying before an investigative jury, Charles Collins quietly went
home and shot himself in the head. He was also buried in the Chestnut
Grove Cemetery, several feet from the mass grave. Amasa Stone
(1818-1883) committed suicide approximately 7 years later. Stone
was held partly responsible for the disaster by the same investigative
jury before which Collins had testified, and was publicly scorned for
many years.
(http://deadohio.com/AshTrain.htm)
1877-1879 India experienced a devastating famine that
left 6-12 million people dead.
(http://sharpgary.org/1864-1895.html)(Econ, 1/29/05,
p.74)
1881 Mar 23, Gas lamp set fire to
Nice, France, opera house and 70 died.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1881 Apr 11, River ferry "Princess
Victoria" sank in Thames River, Ontario, and 180 died. [see May 24]
(MC, 4/11/02)
1881 May 24, Some 200 people died
when the Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sank near London, Ontario.
[see Apr 11]
(AP, 5/24/97)
1881 Aug 27, A hurricane hit
Florida and the Carolinas; about 700 died.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1881 Dec 8, Vienna's Ring Theater
was destroyed by fire and 640-850 people were killed.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1881-1919 Some 59 laborers, mostly Chinese
immigrants, were killed in explosions at the California Powder Works in
Hercules. They were paid 12.5 cents per hour.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1882 Jun 6, Cyclone in Arabian Sea
(Bombay India) drowned 100,000.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1883 Jan 13, Fire in circus
Ferroni in Berditschoft, Poland, killed 430.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1883 Jul 3, SS Daphne sank on
Clyde River in Scotland and 195 died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1883 Jul 28, Shocks, triggered by
the volcano Epomeo (Isle of Ischia, Italy), destroyed 1,200 houses at
Casamicciola killing 2,000.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1883 Aug 26, The island volcano
Krakatoa in Indonesia began erupting with increasingly large explosions
and killed some 36,000 people, both on the island itself and from the
resulting 131-foot tidal waves that obliterated 163 villages on the
shores of nearby Java and Sumatra. A book by Ian Thornton: "Krakatau:
The Destruction and Reassembly of an Island Ecosystem" was published in
1996. [see Aug 27] The history of hundreds of volcanoes is at a Volcano
World Web page: (www.volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html)
(AP, 8/26/97)(Nat. Hist, 3/96, p.6)(HN, 8/26/02)
1883 Aug 27, The island volcano
Krakatoa erupted; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia's Sunda Strait
claimed some 36,417 lives in Java and Sumatra. In 2003 Simon Winchester
au-thored Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: Aug 27, 1883." [see Aug
26]
(AP, 8/27/97)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.M2)
1884 Feb 19, A series of tornadoes
left an estimated 800 people dead in 7 US states (Miss, Ala, NC, SC,
Tenn., Ky & In).
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(MC, 2/19/02)
1887 May 25, Gas lamp at Paris
Opera caught fire and 200 died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1887 China’s Huang Ho (Huang He,
Yellow River) flooded and killed about 900,000 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_toll)
1888 Mar 11-14, The famous
"Blizzard of ‘88" struck the northeastern United States, resulting in
some 400 deaths. New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington were cut
off for days.
(AP, 3/11/98)(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 9/4/05,
p.A7)
1888 Apr 20, 246 people were
reported killed by hail in Moradabad, India.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1889 May 31, A damn across a
tributary of the Little Conemaugh River collapsed under pres-sure from
the rain-swollen Lake Conemaugh. Water slammed into Johnstown, Pa., 55
miles southeast of Pittsburgh and killed 2,209 people in a flood and
related fire.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.706)(SFC, 3/24/97, p.C2)
1889 May 31, Johnstown,
Pennsylvania was destroyed by a massive flood. The South Fork Dam gave
way, sending a wall of water rushing downstream toward Johnstown, Pa.
Torrential rains had weakened the poorly constructed dam, located 14
miles upstream from the city. By the afternoon of May 31, after
desperate efforts to shore up the earthen dam had failed, it broke and
unleashed a 40-foot-high wave of water and debris into Johnstown with
the force of Niag-ara Falls. Buildings and trees, along with animals
and people--both dead and alive--piled up against the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company's Stone Bridge. The mountain of debris then caught
fire, trapping hundreds. More than 2,000 people lost their lives in the
devastating Johns-town Flood. The South Fork Dam had been constructed
to create Lake Conemaugh, a play-ground for the wealthy members of the
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.
(AP, 5/31/97)(HN, 5/31/98)
1892 Jan 8, Coal mine explosion
killed 100 in McAlister, Okla.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1893 The Russalka, a 19th
century ironclad, Russian vessel sank in the Baltic Sea with 177
sailors aboard. In 2003 it was discovered off the Finnish coast.
(AP, 7/26/03)
1896 Jun 15, The Meiji Sanriku
tsunami struck Japan and caused some 27,000 deaths.
(CW, Spring ‘99,
p.28)(http://eklektikos.org/Science.html)
1898 Nov 26, SS Portland left for
Cape Cod. 157 people were killed.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1900 Sep 8, Some 6,000-8,000
people were killed in Galveston by flying debris, collapsing buildings
and drowning. The storm let up around midnight, leaving in its wake $30
million in damage and thousands of bodies. Many of the dead had to be
hastily dumped in the ocean for fear of spreading disease. Bishop's
Palace in Galveston, Texas, remained standing amid piles of rubble
after the island city suffered the greatest natural disaster in U.S.
history. By nightfall, winds reached 125 mph and the city was under 15
feet of water. The storm battered Galveston for 18 hours. In 1999 Erik
Larson published "Isaac's Storm."
(AP, 9/8/97)(HNPD, 9/8/98)(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A2)(WSJ,
9/3/99, p.W8)
1901 Feb 22, The steamer Rio de
Janeiro piled up on rocks at Fort Point at the bay entrance of San
Francisco and some 130 people died. 80 people were rescued, mostly by
Italian fishing boats and many of the dead were Chinese
immigrants. The ship was being guided by bar pilot Frederick W.
Jordan when it hit submerged rock near Lime Point and 128 of 210
passengers drowned in 300 feet of water.
(PacDis, Fall/’96, p.14)(SFEC, 2/23/96, z-1
p.5)(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W2)(SFC, 2/21/01, p.A17)
1902 May 6, British SS Camorta
sank off Rangoon and 739 died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 On the French Island of
Martinique in the east W. Indies, the Mt. Pelee volcano blew its top
and wiped out the town of St. Pierre. A pyroclastic flow killed
29-40 thousand people.
(Hem., 12/96, p.30)(SFC, 8/13/01, p.A4)(SFC,
1/19/02, p.A14)
1902 The Soufriere volcano erupted
on St. Vincent and 1,680 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)
1903 Dec 30, The Iraquois Theater
Fire of Chicago killed 602 people. Matinee patrons pan-icked despite
efforts by comedian Eddie Foy (47) to calm the crowd.
(HFA, '96, p.70)(AP, 12/30/97)(PCh, 1992, p.652)
1894 Sep 1-2, Forest fires ravaged
over 160,000 acres and destroyed Hinckley, Minnesota. About 600 people
died.
(MC, 9/2/01)(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)
1896 May 15, A tornado killed 78
in Texas.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1896 May 27, 255 people were
killed when a tornado struck St. Louis, Mo., and East St. Louis, Ill.
(AP, 5/27/97)
1904 Jun 15, Some 1,021 people
died when fire erupted aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York
City’s East River.
(AP, 6/15/97)(www.newyorkhistory.info)
1905 Feb 8, A cyclone hit Tahiti
and adjacent islands killing some 10,000 people.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1906 Mar 10, A coal dust explosion
killed 1,060 at Courrieres, France.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1907 Feb 11, The passenger ship
Larchmont was steaming through a winter storm in heavy seas, 4 miles
southwest of Watch Hill, Rhode Island when she was rammed by the coal
carry-ing schooner Harry P. Knowles, which had drifted off course in
the blizzard. The Larchmont sank in 10 minutes and only 19 men
including the captain, George McVey survived the ordeal.
(http://rhodeisland-philatelic.com/rhodeisland/postcard120.htm)
1907 Feb 12, Bodies continued to
wash ashore from the steamer Larchmont, which had col-lided the
previous with a schooner off New England's Block Island. The vessel's
quartermaster, James E. Staples, claimed a loss of 332.
(AP, 2/12/98)
1907 Dec 6, Worst mining disaster
in American history took place in West Virginia's Marion County. An
explosion at a mine owned by the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah
killed 361 coal miners.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1907 Dec 19, A gas explosion
killed 239 workers in a coal mine in Jacobs Creek, Pa.
(AP, 12/19/97)(MC, 12/19/01)
1907 A great cantilever bridge
collapsed in Quebec killing 75 workers.
(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1908 Mar 8, Collingwood Elementary
in Cleveland burned. 173 kids and 2 teachers were killed.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1908 Apr 12, Fire left 17,000
homeless in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1908 Dec 28, Some 70,000-100,000
people died in the Messina earthquake in Sicily. The government hired a
number of steamships, including the Florida, to ship survivors to
America.
(WUD, 1994, p.899)(WSJ, 2/8/99,
p.A21)(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmosde.html)
1909 Jul 26, The SS Waratah left
Durban, South Africa, with 211 passengers and crew. The steamship,
enroute from Melbourne to London, was due in Cape Town 3 days later,
but never arrived.
(Econ, 9/19/09, p.94)
1910 Mar 1, The worst snow slide
in US history buried 3 passenger trains at Steven's Pass in the Cascade
Range and 118 died.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1910 Dec 21, Explosion in coal
mine in Hulton, England killed 344 mine workers.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1911 Mar 25, The Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146 immigrant workers. 13 girls
sur-vived the fire that broke out on the top three floors of the
10-story New York’s Asch Building as the workday was ending. No one
knows what caused the fire, but it spread quickly, fueled by the fabric
scraps and sewing machine oil used in the manufacture women’s blouses.
The three avenues of escape were almost immediately clogged with
panicked workers, mostly young im-migrant women. Then, to the horror of
spectators seven stories below, the desperate women began to jump to
their deaths. Appalled by the tragedy, the New York State legislature
formed a commission whose findings led to the creation of new fire and
building codes that were soon adopted in cities throughout America.
(HNPD, 3/25/00)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A8)(SFC, 2/24/99,
p.C4)(AP, 3/23/08)
1911 In the Philippines the Taal
volcano erupted and 1,335 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)
1912 Mar 5, Spanish steamer
"Principe de Asturias" sank NE of Spain and 500 died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1912 Apr 8, Steamers collided in
Nile, drowning 200.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1912 Apr 15, At 2:20 a.m., two
hours and 40 minutes after impact, the luxury liner RMS Ti-tanic sank
in the North Atlantic Ocean off Newfoundland with the loss of about
1,522 lives. About 1,500 [1517] people died. Because there were
lifeboats for only half those on board, only 705 passengers and crew
survived the disaster. Among the survivors was J. Bruce Ismay,
president of the White Star Line, who telegraphed his New York office,
"Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning after collision
with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full particulars
later." Nearly a third of the passengers died. The ship’s band played
the waltz “Songe d’Automne” as it sank. The accident killed 1,523
[1503] people and 705 survived. By 1996 only 8 were still alive. Nearly
60% of the first-class passengers survived. There were 214 staff
members of the 685 survivors. It was later discovered that Harland
& Wolff, the ship’s builder, had used a lower quality rivet on the
ship that likely contributed to the rapid sinking. The last night on
the ship was described by Rick Archbold and Dana McCauley in their
book: “Last Dinner on the Titanic.” The steamer Carpathia rescued 705
of the 2,358 people onboard. Prof. Steven Biel of Brandeis Univ. wrote
“A Cultural History of the Titanic” in 1997.
(AP, 4/15/97)(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.16)(SFC, 9/22/96,
Par p.25)(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/14/97, p.E8)(SFC, 4/19/97,
p.A3)(SFEC,12/797, DB p.37)(SFC, 4/15/08, p.A6)
1913 Feb 9-18, The 10 Day Tragedy
of Mexico City when 3,000 died.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1913 Nov 9, Storm "Freshwater
Fury" sank 8 ore-carriers on Great Lakes.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1914 Apr 28, At Eccles, WV,
181 died in coal mine collapse.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1914 May 29, The Canadian ship
Empress of Ireland sank while enroute to Quebec City to Liverpool after
colliding with the Norwegian coal freighter Storstad. 1,012 (1,024) of
the 1,500 passengers and crew were killed. The site of the tragedy was
proclaimed a protected historic and archeological site by Quebec in
1999.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D3)(SC, 5/29/02)
1915 Jan 13, An earthquake in
Avezzano, Italy, killed 29,800.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1915 Jan 18, A train derailed on a
steep incline at Colima-Guadalajara, Mexico, and some 600 people were
killed.
(MC,
1/18/02)(http://www.emergency-management.net/pass_train.htm)
1915 May 7, In the 2nd year of
WWI, the British Cunard ocean liner Lusitania, on a voyage from New
York to Liverpool, sank off the coast of Ireland in only 18-21 minutes
after being struck by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat U-20. Of
1,959 [1,978] passengers and crew, 1,195 died. Of the fatalities, 123
were Americans. Even though the Germans maintained the liner was
carrying arms purchased in America to Britain, the sinking of a
passenger ship aroused intense anger against the German policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare and has-tened America's entrance into
the war. In 2002 Diana Preston authored "Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy"
and David Ramsay authored "Lusitania: Saga and Myth."
(CFA, '96, p.46)(AP, 5/7/97)(HN, 5/7/98)(HNPD,
5/7/99)(HN, 5/7/99)(WSJ, 5/8/02, p.AD9)
1915 May 22, Near Gretna,
Scotland, a passenger train collided with a troop train, killing 227
people.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1915 Jul 24, Excursion ship
Eastland capsized in Lake Michigan and 852 die.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1916 Aug 29, Transport ship
Hsin-Yu & cruiser Hai-Yung collided and 1000 people were killed.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1916 Dec 12, Worst train disaster
ever took place in Modane, France, 543 French Soldiers were killed.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1917 Jan 19, Silvertown Essex's
ammunition factory exploded and 300 died.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1917 Feb 20, Ammunitions ship
exploded in Archangel harbor, Russia, and about 1,500 died.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1917 Mar 23, A 4 day series of
tornadoes killed 211 in Midwest US.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1917 Jul 9, British warship
"Vanguard" exploded at Scapa Flow killing 804.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1917 Dec 6, In Nova Scotia some
2000 people were killed and thousands wounded following an explosion in
Halifax harbor. The Imo, a Norwegian freighter ship, had collided with
the French munitions ship Mont Blanc and a fire soon caused a massive
explosion. A local court found Captain Le Medec of the Mont Blanc and
other defendants guilty of the collision. Can-ada’s Supreme Court ruled
that the captains of both ships were equally to blame. A Privy Council
in London ruled that Le Medec had done nothing illegal.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.1054)(ON, 7/05, p.7)
1917 Dec 12, In Modane,
France, a troop train derailed near the entrance of Mt. Cenis tunnel
and 543 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1918 Apr 13, Electrical fire
killed 38 mental patients at Oklahoma State Hospital.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1918 May 18, A TNT explosion in
chemical factory in Oakdale, PA, killed 200.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1918 Jul 9, 101 people were killed
as an inbound local train collided with an outbound express in
Nashville, Tenn.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1918 Jul 12, A Japanese battleship
exploded in the Bay of Tokayama and some 500 people were killed.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1918 Nov 1, 102 died in a NYC BMT
subway derailment at Malbone Street Brooklyn.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1919 Jan 5, In Boston an explosion
opened a tank of molasses and the cylindrical sides top-pled outward
knocking down 10 nearby buildings. 2 million gallons of molasses oozed
onto the streets and killed 21 people. Another 50 were injured. [see
1872]
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.E4)
1919 May 1, The Kelut volcano
erupted and 5,110 people were killed. Mount Kelud (Indone-sia) erupted
and a boiling crater lake broke through the crater wall killing 5,000
people in 104 small villages.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)(MC, 5/1/02)
1920 Dec 16, In China an 8.6
earthquake in the northwestern provinces of Gansu and Shanxi caused
massive landslides and the deaths of 100,000- 200,000 people.
(SFC, 1/800,
p.A8)(www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/eq/faq/world.htm)
1921 Feb 19, The U.S. Red Cross
reported that approximately 20,000 children died yearly in auto
accidents.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1921 Mar 18, Steamer "Hong Koh"
ran aground off Swatow China killing 1,000.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1921 Sep 21, In Oppau, Germany, an
explosion at the Bradishe Aniline chemical works, a ni-trate
manufacturing plant, destroyed the plant and a nearby village with 561
deaths and over 1500 persons injured.
(HSAB, 1994, p.46)(MC, 9/21/01)
1922 Feb 21, Airship Rome exploded
at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and 34 died.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1922 Aug 2, China was hit by a
typhoon and some 60,000 died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1923 Sep 1, The Japanese cities of
Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by the Great Kanto earthquake that
claimed 99,000-143,000 lives. The 7.9-8.3 quake off Tokyo's shoreline
killed some 99,300 people.
(AP,
9/1/97)(www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/eq/faq/world.htm)
1924 Mar 8, Coal mine explosion
killed 171 at Castle Gate, Utah.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1924 Jun 28, A tornado struck
Sandusky & Lorain, Ohio, killing 93.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1925 Mar 18, The great Tri-State
Tornado killed 695 people in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri and injured
some 13,000 people, and causing $17 million in property damage.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 5/11/03, Par p.A11)
1927 Jan 9, Fire in Laurier Palace
cinema in Montreal killed 78 children.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1927 Feb 17, The death toll
reached 24 with some 3,000 left homeless after a fierce storm hit the
Pacific Coast.
(SFC, 2/15/02, p.G8)
1927 May 6, The was a major flood
along the Mississippi that killed 247 people and displaced thousands.
The levee system broke in 145 places and caused 27,000 square miles of
flooding in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and
Tennessee. In 1997 the book "Rising Tide" by John M. Barry described
the catastrophe. It was also the subject of the Randy New-man song
"Louisiana 1927."
(WSJ, 2/6/97, p.A12)(SFC, 11/28/03, p.C7)(SSFC,
9/4/05, p.A7)
1928 Mar 12, The 3-year-old St.
Francis dam collapsed and some 450 people were killed in Santa Paula,
Ventura County, Ca.
(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A3)(PCh, 1992, p.791)
1928 May 19, "Firedamp" exploded
in a Mather, Pennsylvania, coal mine killing 195 of 273 miners.
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1928 Aug 27, 16 people died in
NYC’s 2nd worst subway accident.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1928 Sep 12, A hurricane in
Florida killed 6,000 people.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1929 May 15, Fire in X-ray film
stock killed 125 at Crile Clinic, Cleveland.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1930 Apr 21, A fire at Ohio State
Penitentiary killed 322.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1930 Nov 25, An earthquake in
Shizouka, Japan, killed 187.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1931 Jul-Nov, The Huang He River
(Huang Ho, Yellow River) in China flooded more than 40,000 sq. miles
and more than a million people were killed.
(HFA, '96,
p.71)(http://socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/geography/huangheriver.htm)
1932 Dec 16, An 8.6 earthquake
ravaged Kansu, China. Some 70,000 were killed. [see Dec 26]
(MC, 12/16/01)
1932 Dec 26, Some 70,000 were
killed in a massive earthquake in Kansu, China. [see Dec 16]
(HN, 12/26/98)(MC, 12/26/01)
1933 Dec 24, A Paris express train
derailed and killed 160. Some 300 were injured.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1934 Sep 7-8, The luxury liner
"Morro Castle," enroute from Havana to NYC, caught fire and ran aground
at Asbury Park, NJ. 134 people were killed. [see Sep 8]
(www.jerseyboardwalk.com/morro.htm)
1934 Sep 8, 134 people lost their
lives in a fire aboard the liner Morro Castle off the New Jer-sey
coast. The crew of the cruise ship let a small blaze get out of control
and commandeered most of the spots in the lifeboats. Only 15 passengers
survived as compared to 119 crew. 124 people died. The event was part
of a 1999 TV documentary "Escape, Because Accident Hap-pen" for a NOVA
miniseries. [see Sep 7]
(AP, 9/8/97)(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A21)
1935 Sep 2, A hurricane slammed
into the Florida Keys, claiming more than 400 lives. Esti-mates of the
dead reached 500-800. Some 260 WW I veterans were killed in the Labor
Day hurricane as well as over 160 permanent residents.
(HC, 9/29/04)(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.B1)(AP, 9/2/07)
1936 Apr 5, Tupelo, Mississippi,
was virtually annihilated by a tornado and 216 died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1936 Apr 6, A tornado killed 203
and injures 1,800 in Gainesville, Georgia.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1937 Mar 18, Some 300 people,
mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New
London, Texas.
(AP, 3/18/08)
1937 Mar 24, A bus blew a tire,
went out of control and 18 people were killed in Salem, Illi-nois.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1938 Mar 2, Landslides and floods
cause over 200 deaths in Los Angeles, CA.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1939 Dec 22, 99 died in 2nd train
wreck at Friedrichshafen, Germany.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1939 Dec 22, 125 died in train
wreck at Magdeburg, Germany.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1939 In Erzincan, Turkey, an
earthquake killed 30,000 people.
(SFEC, 8/22/99, p.A17)
1940 Mar 14, A truck full of
migrant workers collided with a train outside McAllen, Texas. 27 people
were killed and 15 injured.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1940 Apr 23, Some 198 people died
in a dance-hall fire in Natchez, Miss.
(AP, 4/23/97)(MC, 4/23/02)
1940 Nov 11, Blizzard struck
midwestern US killing over 100.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1941 Mar 15, A blizzard in North
Dakota killed 151.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1941 May 25, Some 5,000 drowned in
a storm at Ganges Delta region in India.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1942 Mar 26, 20 tons of gelignite
killed 21 in a stone quarry in Easton, PA.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1942 Apr 27, Tornado destroyed
Pryor, Oklahoma, killing 100 and injuring 300.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1942 Jul 28, Nazis liquidated
10,000 Jews in Minsk, Russia.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1942 Oct 16, In India a cyclone
devastated Bengal and about 40,000 lives were lost.
. (www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1942 Nov 28, 491 people died in a
fire that destroyed the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Bos-ton. The cause
of the fire was never officially determined, though many blamed a
busboy who had survived the blaze.
(AP, 11/28/97)(DT net, 11/28/97)
1943 Mar 31, US errantly bombed
Rotterdam, killed 326.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1944 Jan 16, In Leon Province,
Spain, train wrecks in the Torro Tunnel killed more than 500 people.
(AP, 2/18/04)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)
1944 Mar 2, In Salerno, Italy,
fumes from a locomotive stalled in a tunnel suffocated 521 peo-ple.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1944 May 21, In Hawaii the tank
landing ship LST-353 exploded at West Loch while handling ammunition.
In a short space of time, six LSTs were so damaged that they sank. Two
others were severely damaged. The total casualties from the tragedy
were 163 dead and 396 injured.
(www.nps.gov/archive/usar/scrs/scrs2z.htm)
1944 Jul 6, In Hartford, Conn.,
168 people died when fire broke out in the main tent of the Ringling
Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In 2000 Stewart O’Nan authored
"The Circus Fire: A True Story."
(AP, 7/6/04)(SFEC, 8/20/00, BR p.3)
1944 Aug 23, A US B-24 crashed
into a school in Freckelton, England, and 76 were killed.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1945 Mar 10, Some 300 American
B-29s bombed Tokyo at night with almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries
killing 100,000.
(HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1945 May 3, German ship "Cap
Arcona" sank and 5,800 were killed.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1945 Nov 8, A riverboat sank off
Hong Kong and 1,550 were killed.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1946 Apr 1, An Aleutian Islands
earthquake triggered a Pacific-wide tsunami that killed 165 people and
caused over $26 million in damage. Tidal waves struck the Hawaiian
islands, result-ing in more than 170 deaths. 91 people were killed in
Hilo.
(AP, 4/1/98)(Ind, 6/8/02, 5A)(SSFC, 8/25/02, p.C14)
1946 Apr 25, A train crash at
Napierville, Illinois, killed 45-48. The "Exposition Flyer" was rammed.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1946 Aug 16, A riot in Calcutta
left some 3-4,000 Moslems and Hindus dead.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1946 Nov 23, French Navy fire in
Haiphong, Vietnam, killed 6,000.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1946 Dec 7, A fire broke out at
the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, killing 119 people, in-cluding
hotel founder W. Frank Winecoff.
(AP, 12/7/04)
1947 Mar 25, A coal mine explosion
in Centralia, Ill., claimed 111 lives.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1947 Apr 9, A series of tornadoes
struck Kansas, West Texas and Oklahoma. 181 were killed and some 1,300
injured.
(AP, 4/9/08)
1947 Apr 16, The French ship
Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire and blew
up, devastating Texas City, Texas. It was America's worst harbor
explosion. Another ship, the Highflyer, exploded the following day. The
final death toll was 576, and more than 3,000 Texas City residents were
left homeless. Property damage ran into the millions.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.E-4)(AP, 4/16/97)(HNPD, 4/17/00)
1947 Aug 18, Naval torpedo and
mine factory exploded at Cadiz, Spain, killing 300.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1948 Jul 28, In Ludwigshafen,
Germany, a vapor explosion from dimethyl ether left 209 peo-ple dead.
(HSAB, 1994, p.46)
1948 Oct 6, A 7.3 earthquake hit
Ashgebat, Turkeminstan, and killed an estimated 110,000 people.
Stalinist media at the time claimed only 35,000 deaths.
(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmosde.html)
1948 Dec 3, Chinese refugee ship
"Kiangya" exploded in East China Sea killing 1,100. [see Dec 4]
(MC, 12/3/01)
1948 Dec 4, SS Kiangya hit a mine
in Whangpoo River, China. It sank and 2,750 were killed. [see Dec 3]
(MC, 12/4/01)
1949 Apr 5, The 60 year old St.
Anthony's Hospital burned and killed 77 in Effingham, Ill.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1949 Oct 22, In Dwor, Poland, the
Danzig-Warsaw express derailed and more than 200 peo-ple were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1949 Nov 29, Uranium mine
explosions in East Germany killed 3,700.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1950 Feb 17, 31 people died in a
train crash in Rockville Center, NY.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1950 Sep 4, A heavy typhoon struck
Japan and killed about 250 people.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1950 Nov 22, 79 died in a train
crash in Richmond Hills, NY.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1951 Aug 6, Typhoon floods killed
4,800 in Manchuria.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1951 Dec 4, Superheated gases
rolled down Mount Catarman (Philippines), killing 500.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1951 In Papua New Guinea the
Lamington volcano erupted and 2,942 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)
1952 Apr 26, US minesweeper
"Hobson" rammed the aircraft carrier "Wasp," and 176 were killed.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1952 Dec 5-8, A 4-day London
smog killed 4,703 people. Oxides of sulfur and other irritants from
coal smoke were blamed. [see Dec 4]
(PCh, 1992, p.937)(MC, 12/5/01)
1953 May 11, A tornado his
downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114 people with 597 injured.
(SSFC, 5/11/03, Par p.11)
1953 Jun 8, A killer tornado hit
Flint, Mich. It killed 116 people and injured more than 850 in Ohio and
Michigan.
(SSFC, 5/11/03, Par p.A11)(Hartford Courant, 6/9/63,
p.23A)
1953 Jun 9, About 100 people died
when a tornado struck Worcester, Mass. The tornado from the Midwest
roared into Massachusetts. By the time it left, 94 people were dead,
and more than $58 million in property damage occurred. It was the worst
tornado in New England history.
(AP, 6/9/97)(http://tinyurl.com/yg8dhcd)
1953 Dec 24, 2 speeding express
trains crashed head-on killing 103 in Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1953 Dec 24, 2 speeding express
trains crashed head-on killing 103 in Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1954 Jan 12, Austria's worst
avalanche killed 200. 9hrs later a 2nd one killed 115.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1954 Oct 15, Hurricane Hazel
struck US and Canada and 348 people died. 81 people were killed in
Ontario where damages were estimated at $24 million.
(AP, 10/16/04)
1955 Apr 3, In Guadalajara,
Mexico, a night train plunged into a canyon and some 300 people were
killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1955 Aug 17, Hurricane Diane
followed hurricane Connie and flooded the Connecticut River killing 190
and doing $1.8 billion in damage.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1956 May 26, Aircraft carrier
"Bennington" burned off RI, killing 103.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1956 Jul 7, Seven Army trucks
loaded with dynamite exploded in middle of Cali, Columbia, killing
1,100-1,200. 2000 buildings were destroyed.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1956 Jul 25, 51 people died when
the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the
Swedish ship Stockholm in 200 feet of water 50 miles southeast of
Nantucket Island, Mass. The Dorea was headed from Genoa, Italy, to NY.
(TOH, 1982, p.1956)(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)(AP,
7/25/97)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A16) (SFC, 7/30/99, p.D5)
1957 Jul 14, Soviet steamer
"Eshghbad" sank in Caspian Sea and 270 drowned.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1957 Sep 29, In Montgomery, West
Pakistan (later renamed to Sahiwal, Pakistan), an ex-press train
collided with stationary oil train and 250 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1958 Sep 15, A commuter train
crashed through a drawbridge, killing 48 in Newark, NJ.
(http://www.emergency-management.net/traincrash.htm)
1958 Dec 1, In Chicago Our Lady of
Angels School burned. 92 students and 3 nuns were killed.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1959 May 8, A 3-deck Nile
excursion steamer sprang a leak panicking passengers who
cap-sized the ship. 200 drowned just yards from shore.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1960 Jan 22, The Johnburg coal
mine caved in and 417 die.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1960 Mar 28, In Glasgow, Scotland,
a factory exploded burying 20 fire fighters.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1960 Jul 14, Fire raging through a
Guatemala City, Guatemala, insane asylum and 225 were killed with 300
severely injured.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1960 Oct 10, A cyclone and tidal
wave hit the Gulf of Bengal and killed about 6,000 in East Pakistan.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1960 Nov 13, Fire in movie theater
killed 152 children in Amude, Spain.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1962 Mar 16, US Lockheed
Super-Constellation disappeared above Pacific Ocean and 167 were killed.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1963 Mar 17, Eruptions of Mount
Agung volcano on Bali killed 1,900 Balinese. The Agung eruption killed
1,184 people.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)(MC, 3/17/02)
1963 Apr 10, The USS Thresher
nuclear-powered submarine failed to surface 220 miles east of Boston,
Mass., in a disaster that claimed 129 lives.
(AP, 4/9/97)(MC, 4/10/02)
1963 May 20-23, In East Pakistan a
cyclone killed about 22,000 along coast of the Bay of Bengal.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1963 May 28, An estimated 22,000
died in another cyclone in Bay of Bengal, India.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1963 Jul 26, Skopje, Yugoslavia,
was destroyed by earthquake and over 1,000 were killed.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1963 Sep 9, In Italy a landslide
into Vaiont Dam emptied a lake and killed 3-4,000 people. [see Oct 9]
(MC, 9/9/01)
1963 Oct 4-1963 Oct 8, Hurricane
Flora, killed some 7-8,000 people in Cuba and Haiti.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A2)
1963 Nov 23, Sixty-three elderly
people, most of them sleeping, were killed by a fire destroy-ing the
one-story Golden Age Nursing Home near Fitchville, Ohio.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1963 Dec 8, Three fuel tanks
exploded when a jetliner, struck by lightning, crashed near Elk-ton,
Maryland. 81 people died. This was the only case of a lightning caused
crash.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1964 Sep 12, Typhoon Gloria struck
Taiwan killing 330, with $17.5 million damage.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1964 In Vietnam a major flood
killed 10,000 people.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.A12)
1965 Mar 1, Gas explosion killed
28 in apartment complex at La Salle, Quebec, Canada.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1965 Apr 11, A series of tornados
left 256 people dead in the US Midwest.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)
1965 May 11-12, In East Pakistan a
cyclone killed some 12,000.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1965 Jun 1-2, The 2nd of 2
cyclones in less than a month killed 35,000 along the Ganges River in
East Pakistan.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1965 Dec 15, In Karachi, Pakistan,
a cyclone killed about 10,000.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1966 Jan 11, In Brazil 550 died in
landslides in mountains behind Rio de Janeiro after rain.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1966 Jan 29, A snow storm in north
east US killed 165.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1966 Mar 3, A twister hit Jackson,
MS, just 3 minutes after 1st sighting and 57 were killed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1966 Mar 5, 75 MPH air currents
caused a BOAC 707 to crash into Mount Fuji and 124 died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1966 Aug 19, An earthquake struck
Varko, Turkey, and some 2,400 were killed.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1966 Nov 4, In Florence, Italy the
River Arno overflowed and damaged the Uffizi Gallery. Whole libraries
of valuable ancient documents were soaked. 113 people were killed.
(WSJ, 10/29/96, p.A21)(SFC, 4/6/01, p.D4)(MC,
11/4/01)
1967 Oct 12, In India a massive
cyclone struck the rural Orissa state consisting of small vil-lages.
Basically all life (human and animal) and each structure was wiped out;
the precise num-ber of fatalities and destruction is unknown.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1967 Nov 26, Cloudburst over
Lisbon killed 450.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1968 Mar 10, A ferry boat sank in
harbor of Wellington, NZ, and 200 were killed.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1968 Apr 6, Gunpowder stocks at a
sporting-goods store exploded and 43 were killed in Va.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1968 May 27, The US nuclear
submarine Scorpion was lost.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1969 Apr 14, Tornado struck Dacca
in East Pakistan killing 540.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1969 Aug 17, 248 people were
killed as Hurricane Camille slammed into the Gulf Coast.
(AP, 8/17/97)
1970 Feb 1, In Buenos Aires,
Argentina, an express train rammed stationary commuter train and 236
people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1970 Feb 24, 29 Swiss Army
officers died in avalanche at Reckingen, Switzerland.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1970 May 31, A 7.7 slab earthquake
and debris flow in Peru killed 67,000, injured 50,000 and destroyed
186,000 buildings.
(AP,
5/31/97)(http://landslides.usgs.gov/html_files/landslides/slides/slide5.htm)
1970 Nov 1, A discotheque in
Grenoble, France, burned. All exits were padlocked and 142 died.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1970 Nov 13, The Bhola Cyclone
killed an estimated 300,000 in East Pakistan (Bangladesh). The highest
loss of life and destruction occurred on the low lying islands of the
Ganges Delta south of Dhaka. In particular the island and district of
Bhola, where casualties may have ex-ceeded 100,000 alone, with the
towns of Charfasson and Tazumuddin being devastated. The city of
Chittagong was also badly affected. The official death toll was put at
150,000, with 100,000 people missing. However many estimates put the
true figure as high as 500,000.
(SFEC, 9/5/04,
p.6)(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/C_0397.htm)
1971 Feb 21, A series of tornadoes
cut through Miss and La killing 117.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1971 Aug 20-21, In Vietnam heavy
rains flooded the Red River delta and some 100,000 peo-ple were killed.
(www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001440.html)
1971 Sep 29, In India a cyclone
and tidal wave off Bay of Bengal killed as many as 10,000 in Orissa
state.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1972 May 13, In Osaka,
Japan, 118 died in a nightclub atop the 7-story Sennichi dept store.
(http://shippai.jst.go.jp/en/Detail?fn=0&id=CD1000133)
1972 Oct 6, In Saltillo, Mexico, a
22-car train carrying 2,000 religious pilgrims derailed and caught
fire. 208 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1972 Dec 29, Eastern Tri-Star
Jumbo Jet crashed near Everglades killing 101.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1972 The Tutsi-led government in
Burundi killed some 100,000 Hutus.
(SFC, 8/31/99, p.A14)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)
1973 Jan 10, An empty liquefied
natural gas (LNG) tank in Bloomfield on Staten Island ex-ploded and 40
workers were killed.
(www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyrichmo/history.shtml)
1973 Aug 2, A flash fire killed 51
at the Summerland leisure center on the Isle of Man, UK.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerland_disaster)
1974 Apr 3, A series of 148 deadly
tornadoes struck wide parts of the South and Midwest be-fore jumping
across the border into Canada; some 330 people were killed in 13 states
(Ala-bama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi,
North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West
Virginia. Total property damage was estimated at $600 million.
(AP, 4/3/99)(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 9/4/05, p.A7)
1974 Aug 30, In Yugoslavia an
express train ran full speed into a Zagreb, Croatia, rail yard killing
152.
(www.cmj.hr/2001/42/6/12.htm)
1974 Aug, Monsoon floods ravaged
Bangladesh and some 2,500 were killed.
(http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/english/flooding/casestudies.shtml#49)
1974 Sep 18, Hurricane Fifi struck
Honduras with 110 mph winds and killed about 8,000. The hurricane made
landfall as a Category 2 storm in Belize on the next day, and continued
through Guatemala and Mexico as a tropical system. After weakening to a
depression, Fifi emerged into the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first
crossover storm since Hurricane Irene-Olivia in 1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Fifi-Orlene)
1974 Dec 25, Cyclone Tracy reduced
90% of Darwin, Australia, to rubble. 65 people died in-cluding 49 in
the city and 16 at sea.
(SFEC, 9/10/00,
p.T10)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1975 Feb 28, A London subway train
smashed into the end of a tunnel at Moorgate Under-ground station and
43 people were killed.
(AP, 1/23/06)
1975 Aug 7, In China a dam
collapse in Henan province killed tens of thousands of people. The
event was covered up for many years. A typhoon from the South China Sea
brought three successive days of enormous rain storms to the area of
southern Henan Province. Altogether 62 dams failed in one night,
including two major dams. As a result of this catastrophe 85,600 people
died according to the official government figures but others place the
toll at 230 thou-sand.
(WSJ, 8/29/07,
p.A12)(www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/3gorges.htm)
1975 Dec 28, An earthquake in
Pakistan killed some 4,000 people.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1976 Jun 5, The Teton Dam in Idaho
burst catastrophically and water blasted through a nar-row canyon and
onto Sugar City. It released nearly 300,000 acre feet of water, then
flooded farmland and towns downstream with the eventual loss of 14
lives, directly or indirectly, and with a cost estimated to be nearly
$1 billion.
(AP,
6/5/00)(www.geol.ucsb.edu/faculty/sylvester/Teton%20Dam/welcome_dam.html)
1976 Jul 28, In China a 7.8-8.2
earthquake in the northern city of Tangshan killed at least 242,000
people. This was reported as the deadliest earthquake in the last 100
years.
(AP,
7/28/97)(http://history1900s.about.com/od/horribledisasters/a/tangshan.htm)
1976 Dec 25, 100 Moslems,
returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, died when their boat, the
Egyptian SS Patria, sank in the Red Sea.
(HN, 12/25/98)(MC, 12/25/01)
1977 May 18, A nightclub fire in
Cincinnati killed 164.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1977 May 28, 165 people were
killed when fire raced through the Beverly Hills Supper Club in
Southgate, Ky.
(AP, 5/28/97)
1977 Jul 20, A flash flood hit
Johnstown, Pa., killing more than 80 people and causing $350 million
worth of damage.
(AP, 7/20/08)
1977 Nov 6, 39 people were killed
when an earthen dam burst, sending a wall of water through Toccoa Falls
Bible College in Georgia.
(AP, 11/6/97)
1977 Nov 19, A cyclone and tidal
wave hit Andhra Pradesh, India. Entire villages were sub-merged by
tidal waves with an estimated 10-20 thousand people killed.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)(SFC,
11/1/99, p.A11)(AP, 11/21/02)
1977 Dec 22, Three dozen people
were killed when a 250-foot-high grain elevator at the Con-tinental
Grain Co. plant in Westwego, La., exploded.
(AP, 12/22/97)
1978 Apr 16, A tornado struck in
Orissa, India, and killed 500-600 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Apr 27, In West Virginia 51
construction workers plunged to their deaths when a scaffold inside a
cooling tower at the nuclear Pleasants Power Station on Willow Island
fell 168 feet to the ground.
(AP, 4/27/98)(MC, 4/27/02)
1978 Jul 11, 216 people were
killed at a camping site when a tanker truck overfilled with pro-pylene
gas exploded on a coastal highway south of Tarragona, Spain.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)(AP, 7/11/97)
1978 Nov 5, Floods in Tamil Nadu
and Kerala, India, killed 125 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1979 Aug 30, Hurricane David
devastated the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica as it began a rampage
through the Caribbean and up the eastern seaboard of the United States
that claimed some 1,100 lives.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1980 Mar 27, 137 workers died when
a North Sea floating oil field platform, the Alexander I. Keilland,
capsized during a storm.
(AP, 3/27/02)
1980 May 9, 35 motorists were
killed when a Liberian freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over
Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section of the bridge to
collapse.
(AP, 5/9/97)
1980 May 20, Fire in nursing home
in Kingston, Jamaica, killed 157.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1980 Nov 21, 87 people died in a
fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, Nev.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1980 Nov 23, In Europe's biggest
earthquake since 1915, 3,000 were killed in Italy. Some 4,800 people
were killed by a series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A12)(TMC, 1994, p.1980)(AP,
11/23/97) (HN, 11/23/98)
1981 Jun 6, In Bihar, India, a
train crashed after a bridge collapsed in flash floods during the
monsoon and some 400-800 people were killed in what was reportedly
world's worst train disas-ter.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(AP, 4/23/04)
1982 Jul 18, In Guatemala soldiers
and paramilitary troops massacred 267 people in the re-mote hamlet of
Plan de Sanchez. In 2001 local communities filed genocide charges
against congressional head Efrain Rios Montt, who was the
dictator at the time of the massacre.
(SFC, 6/6/01, p.C3)
1983 May 25, Fire in Nassermeer,
Egypt, killed 357.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1983 Nov 27, 183 people were
killed when a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashed near
Madrid's Barajas airport.
(AP, 11/27/97)
1984 Nov 19, Near Mexico City,
Mexico, 5 million liters of liquefied butane exploded at a stor-age
facility with more than 400 deaths.
(HSAB, 1994, p.46)
1984 Dec 3, More than 4,000 people
died and 200,000 were injured after a gas escaped from a pesticide
plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India. 40 tons
of vaporous methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide, monomethyl amine,
carbon monoxide and possibly 20 other chemicals were released after an
explosion. Over the years, according to the Indian gov-ernment, some
15,000 people have died from effects of the gas.
(WSJ, 11/27/96, p.A1)(HN, 12/3/98)(SFEC, 3/5/00,
p.A23)(AP, 12/3/04)
1985 Jan 13, An express train
derailed in Ethiopia and killed at least 428.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1985 May 11, More than 50 people
died when a flash fire swept a jam-packed soccer stadium in Bradford,
England.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1985 May 25, A cyclone ravaged the
Meghna River delta of Bangladesh. Some 10,000 people and 500,000 head
of cattle died; hundreds of thousands were left homeless.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1985 May 31, 41 tornadoes hit the
Northeast US, killing 88.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1985 Nov 6, In Columbia some 35
leftist M-19 rebels took over the Palace of Justice. A mili-tary raid
to liberate hostages held by M-19 guerrillas at the Supreme Court
followed and cost more than 100 lives, including 11 Supreme Court
justices and all 30 guerrillas.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A6)(WSJ, 1/8/97, p.A12)(SFEC,
4/20/98, p.A8)
1985 Nov 13, Some 23,000 residents
of Armero, Colombia, died when a mudslide, triggered by the Nevado del
Ruiz volcano, buried the city under 30 feet of mud.
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.27)(AP, 11/13/97)(SFEC,
7/12/98, p.A22)
1986 Apr 14, Double-decker ferry
sank in stormy weather in Bangladesh killing 200.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1986 May 25, Ferry boat Shamia
sank on Maghna River in Bangladesh and some 600 were killed.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1986 Aug 21, In Cameroon 1,746
people died when toxic gas, an invisible bubble of CO2, erupted [seeped
out] from a volcano under Lake Nyos. Venting of the lake began in 2001.
(AP, 8/21/97)(WSJ, 11/17/97, p.B1)(SFC, 8/14/99,
p.A6)(SC, 8/21/02)(AP, 2/15/03)
1986 Aug 31, The Soviet passenger
ship Admiral Nakhimov collided with a merchant vessel in the Black Sea,
causing both vessels to sink; up to 448 people reportedly died.
(AP, 8/31/97)
1987 Mar 6, The British ferry
Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the Channel off the coast of
Belgium. At least 26 were dead. 189 (192) people died when a British
ferry capsized off the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.
(HN, 3/6/98)(AP, 3/6/98)(MC, 3/6/02)
1987 May 23, Rescue workers and
survivors searched through the rubble of a killer tornado in Saragosa,
Texas, that had claimed 30 lives. Texas Gov. Bill Clements expressed
his sorrow, and pledged all possible help.
(AP, 5/23/97)
1987 Nov 26, Powerful typhoon
whipped across Philippines, killing 270 people and damaging or
destroying 14,000 homes.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1987 Dec 20, More than 3,000
people were killed when the Dona Paz, a Philippine passenger ship,
collided with the tanker Vector off Mindoro island, setting off a
double explosion. 4386 died.
(AP, 12/20/97)(MC, 12/20/01)
1988 Feb 20, Some 500 people died
in heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1988 May 14, Twenty-seven people,
most of them teen-agers, were killed when their church bus collided
with a pickup truck going the wrong way on a highway near Carrollton,
Ky. The driver of the truck, Larry Mahoney, was convicted of
manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment.
(AP, 5/14/98)
1988 Jul 6, A series of explosions
and fires destroyed the Piper Alpha North Sea oil drilling platform.
167 North Sea oil workers were killed.
(AP, 7/6/98)(SFC, 8/9/04, p.B6)
1988 Aug 28, Seventy [33] people
were killed when three Italian stunt planes collided during an air show
at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany, sending flaming debris
into the crowd of spectators.
(AP, 8/28/98)(RTH, 8/28/99)
1988 Sep 12, Hurricane Gilbert,
called the storm of the century, smashed into the Gulf coast. It
slammed into Jamaica with torrential rains and winds of 145 mph,
killing 45 people and caus-ing damage estimated at up to $1 billion. It
also devastated the Yucatan peninsula and left 225 people dead.
(NOHY, 3/90, p.181)(AP, 9/12/97)(SFC, 10/10/97,
p.A15)
1988 Dec 1, 596 were killed after
a cyclone hit Bangladesh. Half a million were left homeless.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1988 Dec 7, A magnitude 6.9-8.0
earthquake devastated Spitak in northern Armenia; an es-timated 25,000
people died with some $14 billion in losses.
(AP, 12/7/97)(AP,
6/22/02)(www.who.int/archives/inf-pr-1997/en/pr97-08.html)
1988 Dec 14, Sixty more survivors
were pulled from rubble of earthquake that rocked Arme-nia.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1988 In Bangladesh monsoon
floods left over 3,000 dead this year.
(SFC, 8/13/02, p.A15)
1989 Apr 7, A Soviet
nuclear-powered submarine, the Komsomolets, caught fire and sank in the
Norwegian Sea, claiming 42 of 69 lives.
(AP, 4/7/99)(SFC, 8/14/00, p.A13)
1989 Apr 15, 95 people died in a
crush of soccer fans at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England.
(AP, 4/15/97)
1989 Apr 27, A hurricane in
Bangladesh killed 500.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1989 Jun 3, An explosion of a
liquefied gas pipeline engulfed two Trans-Siberian Railroad trains
parked outside the Central Asian city of Ufa in the Soviet Union. 575
people were killed.
(AP, 4/23/04)
1989 Nov 27, 107 people were
killed when a bomb blamed by police on drug traffickers de-stroyed a
Colombian jetliner minutes after takeoff from Bogota's international
airport.
(AP, 11/27/99)
1990 Jan 4, In Sindh Province,
Pakistan, an overcrowded 16-car passenger train collided with standing
freight train and more than 210 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1990 Mar 25, Eighty-seven people,
most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when an
arson fire raced through the illegal Happy Land Social Club in New York
City. Ju-lio Gonzalez, 36, was charged with arson and murder.
(AP, 3/25/97)(SFC, 3/31/99, p.A3)(MC, 3/25/02)
1990 Jul 16, 1600 die in a 7.7
earthquake in Philippines.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1990 Dec 22, Twenty-one sailors
returning from shore leave to the aircraft carrier USS "Sara-toga"
drowned when the Israeli ferry they were traveling on capsized.
(AP, 12/22/00)
1990-2001 Over 1,000 Jammu-Kashmir civilians were
killed by land mines over this period along with nearly 9,000 injuries.
(SSFC, 1/13/02, p.A18)
1991 Apr 26, Twenty-three people
were killed as four dozen tornadoes raked Kansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 4/26/01)
1991 Apr 29, Cyclone struck
Bangladesh. [see Apr 30]
(MC, 4/29/02)
1991 Apr 29, More than 100 people
were killed and some 100,000 were left homeless when a strong
earthquake struck Soviet Georgia.
(AP, 4/29/01)
1991 Apr 30-31, A cyclone in
Bangladesh killed an estimated 131,000 people. 9 million were left
homeless. Thousands of survivors died from hunger and water borne
disease.
(AP, 4/30/97)(SFC, 5/19/97,
p.A13)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1991 May 14, Forty-two people were
killed in a train collision in western Japan.
(AP, 5/14/01)
1991 Jun 15, In the Philippines
Mount Pinatubo (4,750 feet high) erupted. Due to early warn-ing 56,000
people were evacuated and only 450 people died. The eruption forced the
closure of Clark Air Force Base in Angeles City and displaced hundreds
of families of the Aeta tribe. [see June 1,12]
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.27)(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.F4)
1991 Nov 5, Nearly 7,000 people
were killed in floods in the Philippines.
(AP, 11/5/01)
1991 Dec 28, Nine people died in a
crush to get into a basketball game at City College in New York. The
game was promoted by rapper Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. Combs later
testified that security at the Nat Holman facility was supposed to be
provided by NYCC.
(AP, 12/28/97)(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A3)
1992 Mar 3, An underground coal
mine explosion in Kozlu, (Zonguldak), Turkey, claimed 270 lives.
(AP, 3/3/02)(SC, 3/3/02)
1992 Mar 8, Ninety people were
killed when a ferry carrying pilgrims to a Buddhist shrine col-lided
with an oil tanker in the Gulf of Thailand.
(AP, 3/8/02)
1992 Mar 13, 570 died in a Turkish
earthquake.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1992 Aug 31, A dynamite explosion
in Philippines mine killed 500 people.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1993 Feb 17, A ferry carrying up
to 1,500 people sank off Haiti; only 285 people were known to have
survived.
(AP, 2/17/98)
1993 May 10, At least 188 workers
were killed in a doll factory fire in Bangkok, Thailand.
(AP, 5/10/98)
1994 Feb 5, Sixty-eight people
were killed when a mortar shell exploded in a marketplace in Sarajevo,
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)(AP,
2/5/99)
1994 Apr 13, President guard at
Kigali Rwanda, chopped 1,200 church members to death.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1994 Apr 22, In Butare gasoline
was used to set ablaze a building where 500 Tutsis were hid-ing. In
2001 Benedictine Sister Maria Kisito stood trial in Belgium for
providing the gasoline. 7,000 Tutsi's were slaughtered in stadium of
Kibuye, Rwanda.
(SFC, 4/18/01, p.A12)(MC, 4/22/02)
1994 Apr 29, Ferry boat smashed
into Mombasa Harbor, Kenya, and over 300 were killed.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1994 Sep 22, In Tolunda, Angola,
faulty brakes caused a train to plunge into a ravine and some 300
people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1994 Sep 28, More than 900 (909)
people died when the ferry Estonia capsized and sank off the Finnish
coast in the Baltic sea. 852 people of 989 onboard were killed. In 1999
evidence was reported that 3 explosive devices had been placed on the
ship's visor-like bow door.
(AP, 9/28/99)(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A16)(MC, 9/28/01)
1994 Nov 14, Heavy rains and
flooding from Tropical Storm Gordon swept across Haiti, killing several
hundred people.
(AP, 11/14/99)
1995 Apr 22, In Africa, Rwandan
government troops killed thousands of Hutu refugees in Kibeho. The
Tutsi-led government troops cleared a huge refugee camp that they said
was full of Hutu extremists. Human rights officials said that at least
4,000 Hutus were killed, many shot, and many trampled. Tutsi officers
involved received only token punishments.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.C3)(HN, 4/22/99)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.A6)
1995 Aug 20, In Firozabad, India,
a speeding passenger train crashed into a train that had stalled after
hitting a cow and some 358 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(AP, 8/20/00)
1995 Dec 14, Heavy fighting erupts
in Gudermes, Chechnya, when rebels disrupted Kremlin-imposed elections.
At least 267 Chechen civilians were reported killed in the following 10
days.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1995 Dec 26, Floods in eastern
South Africa killed at least 130.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-1)
1996 Jan 8, A Russian-made
Antonov-32 skidded into a crowded marketplace shortly after take-off in
Kinshasa in Zaire (Congo) and killed at least 350 people. The
twin-turboprop was owned by African Air and was overweight when it took
off. At least 470 people were injured.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1) (SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(WSJ,
11/13/01, p.A14)
1996 Mar 19, A fire at a Quezon
City nightclub in the Philippines killed at least 149 young peo-ple
celebrating the end of their school year.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 2, More than 100 Haitians
died when a ferry sank.
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 23, In Bangladesh as many
as 77 people were feared drowned in a sunken ferry after a collision on
the Jamuna River. More than 50 ferries have sunk since 1981 killing
more than 1,000 people.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A11)
1996 Jul 19, In China the Yangtze
River threatened to burst its banks. Workers used 500 tons of rice in
sacks to fill gaps in the banks. Millions were left homeless and 716
were reported dead.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, A ship carrying 69
people sank in the Indian Ocean off the Comoro islands near the island
of Mwali. 5 survivors were found.
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 6, In India cyclone 07B
struck Andhra Pradesh state. [see Nov 7]
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1996 Nov 7, In India cyclone 07B
killed some 2000 in Andhra Pradesh state. Damage was estimated at $1.5
billion.
(WSJ, 11/8/96, p.A1)(SFC, 11/12/96,
p.A11)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1996 Nov 19, Fourteen people were
killed when a commuter plane collided with a private plane at Baldwin
Municipal Airport in Quincy, Ill.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A4)(AP, 11/19/97)
1996 Nov 20, In Hong Kong a fire
raged in the 16-story Garley Building and 39 people died.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.C3)(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A22)(AP,
11/20/97)
1996 Nov 21, Thirty-three people
were killed, and more than 100 injured, when an explosion blamed on
leaking gas ripped through a six-story building in San Juan, Puerto
Rico.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1996 Nov 23, An Ethiopian Boeing
767 airliner crashed into the Indian ocean near Grand Co-more Island.
It had been hijacked after takeoff from Addis Ababa and ran out of fuel
under hi-jacker demands to fly to Australia. 125 of 175 people died.
The plane was destined for the Ivory Coast with stops along the way.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, p.A1,10)(SFC, 11/26/96, p.B3)(AP,
11/23/97)
1996 Dec 22, Eight workers were
killed in an explosion at the Wyman Gordon Forgings metal-fabricating
plant in northwest Houston. They had been doing maintenance on 9-story
pressur-ized tanks.
(SFC, 12/24/96, p.A3)(AP, 12/22/97)
1996 Dec 25, In Malaysia tropical
storm Greg killed at least 163 people in the northern Borneo state of
Sabah.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A8)
1996 Dec 25, Some 280 migrants
form India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were suspected of hav-ing drowned in
the Mediterranean while being transshipped in the Malta-Sicily channel.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A13)
1997 Feb 18, In Peru at least 33
people were killed and a hundred were missing after an An-dean mountain
collapsed and buried the villages of Choch and Pumaranra near Abancay.
Total killed reached 250-300. Only 50 bodies were recovered.
(SFC, 2/19/97, p.A11)(SFC, 2/25/97, p.a14)
1997 Feb 23, In eastern India A
fire in Baripada killed 190 worshippers at the 46th annual fes-tival in
honor of the late Swami Nigamananda.
(SFC, 2/24/97, p.A10)(SFC, 2/25/97, p.a14)(AP,
2/23/98)
1997 May 13, In the Congo rebel
troops reached Wendji and Mbandaka and proceeded to kill Hutu refugees.
Estimates of deaths varied from 550-2000.
(WSJ, 6/6/97, p.A11)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A11)
1997 May 18-19, In Bangladesh a
cyclone pounded the country and 50,000 people were evacuated from the
flat coastal region. 350 [67] [112] people were reported killed.
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A13)(SFC, 5/20/97, p.A12)(SFC,
5/21/97, p.A8)(SFC, 5/22/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 11, In Thailand a kitchen
fire went out of control at the 450-room Royal Jomtien Ho-tel in
Pattaya and killed 90 people with 64 injured.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Nov 6, In Cuba a train-bus
crash killed at least 56 people at Urbano Rey in the eastern sugar
province of Holguin.
(WSJ, 11/7/97, p.A1)
1998 Feb 3, A US surveillance
aircraft cut a ski cable in Italy and caused the death of 20 ski-ers in
a gondola cable car running from Cavalese to the Alpe Cermis. The EA-6B
aircraft was normally used for patrols over Bosnia and was only
slightly damaged. Lt. Col. Steven Watters was later relieved of command
for telling crew members of a related squadron to destroy evi-dence in
the investigation. The pilot did not have Italian military maps that
identified the ski lift. Four crewmen were later charged by the Marine
Corps with negligent homicide, involuntary manslaughter and dereliction
of duty. The pilot and navigator faced trial for manslaughter. Pilot
Richard J. Ashby was acquitted of all charges in 1999. Navigator Joseph
Schweitzer was ac-quitted of manslaughter and negligent homicide
charges. Schweitzer later pleaded guilty to ob-struction and conspiracy
charges for destroying a videotape made during the flight. The tape
indicated that the plane had been flying upside down. Schweitzer was
sentenced to dismissal from the Marine Corps. Capt. Ashby (32) was
found guilty of obstruction of justice and conspir-acy in May, 1999 and
was sentenced to 6 months in prison and dismissed from the Marine
Corps. Families of the victims settled for $2 million apiece in 2000.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A7)(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A11)(SFC,
2/19/98, p.B10)(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A2)(SFC, 3/5/99,
p.A1)(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/30/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A3)(SFC,
5/1/99, p.A4)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A4)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A4)(SFC, 4/26/00, p.A4)
1998 Feb 23, In Florida 6-10
tornadoes killed forty-two people. Some 2,600 homes and busi-nesses
damaged or destroyed, by tornadoes in Seminole, Osceola, Orange,
Brevard and Volu-sia counties Florida.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.A1)(AP, 2/23/99)
1998 Mar 22, In Miles Township,
Pa., 11 students were killed in a cabin fire while on a camp-ing trip.
(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A2)(AP, 3/22/99)
1998 Mar 24, In India a tornado
killed 105 people and some 500 were missing. At least 80 died in the
Midnapore district of West Bengal state and some 1,100 were injured. At
least 200 people were killed and thousands injured from a tornado in
West Bengal and Orissa states.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C3)(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 26, In Kenya a fire at a
school near Mombasa killed 25 teenage girls in their dormi-tory.
(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 4, In the Ukraine a gas
explosion at the Skochinsky coal mine outside Donetsk killed 63 men.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.A20)(AP, 4/4/08)
1998 May 15, Trapped in blazing
shopping malls, hundreds of looters burned to death in riot-ing that
laid smoking waste to Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.
(AP, 5/15/99)
1998 Jul 17, In Papua New Guinea a
tidal wave followed a 7.0 earthquake at the Solomon Islands and killed
at 2,500-3,000 people. The villages of Malol, Arop, Otto, Warupu and
Sissano were turned into barren strips of sand.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A10)(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A1)(SFC,
8/4/99, p.A10)
1998 Jul 18, Residents along the
northern coast of Papua New Guinea were left reeling after a
23-foot-high tidal wave hit the night before, killing an estimated
3,000.
(AP, 7/18/99)
1998 Aug 7, In China the death
toll from the summer floods passed 2,000 and the Jingjiang flood plain
was ordered evacuated.
(SFC, 8/8/98, p.A14)
1998 Aug 26, In China the
government revised its death toll from the floods to over 3,000 [4,150]
people.
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.a14)(SFC, 8/6/99, p.A12)
1998 Nov 2, The death toll from
Hurricane Mitch continued to rise with 174 killed in El Salva-dor, 100
in Guatemala, 0ver 1,500 in Nicaragua and over 5,500 in Honduras.
Central American officials estimated more than 7,000 people had died in
floods and mudslides triggered by Hurri-cane Mitch.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.A1,11)(AP, 11/2/99)
1998 Nov 5, The death toll from
Hurricane Mitch was reduced to 6,076 in Honduras and in-creased to
4,000 in Nicaragua. Aid of $66 mil was ordered from the US, $8 mil from
the EU, $11.6 mil from Spain along with pledges from other countries
and private organizations.
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 17, In Angola renewed
fighting had created some 331,000 refugees since April.
(WSJ, 11/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 23, An Arctic cold wave
was reported to have killed 71 people across Europe over the last 3
days. 36 deaths were in Poland and 24 in Romania and Bulgaria.
(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 26, In the Punjab state
of India a passenger train derailed near Khanna in the path of an
express train in the northwest and at least 108 [211] people were
killed.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 11/27/98, p.A1)(AP,
11/26/99)
1998 Dec 3, In the Philippines a
fire burned the Catholic Bahay Kalinga orphanage in Manila and at least
28 people were killed including 23 children.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A21)(WSJ, 12/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 25, In Lima, Peru, a tear
gas bomb caused a stampede in a disco and 9 young people, 13-21, were
crushed to death. The bomb was said to have been thrown by members of a
youth gang.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A14)
1999 Mar 24, In the 7-mile Mt.
Blanc tunnel between France and Italy a fire killed 4 people with smoke
a burning truck transporting flour. The death toll was raised to 9 with
24 injured. The fire was extinguished after 3 days and the death toll
rose to 35. Identification of the remains of at least 40 people began
Mar 28. Thirty-nine people were killed when fire erupted in the Mont
Blanc tunnel in France and burned for two days. It re-opened in 2002.
(WSJ, 3/25/99, p.A1)(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A14)(SFC,
3/27/99, p.A10)(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A8)(AP, 3/24/00)(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.C4)
1999 Apr 27, A NATO bomb missed a
targeted army barracks and killed at 20 people, half of them children,
in a residential area of Surdulica, Serbia.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A10)(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A14)
1999 May 30, In Belarus at least
54 people, mostly teen-age girls, were killed in a stampede near an
underground passageway in Minsk as they left a concert by a local beer
company due to a sudden heavy rain.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 2, In India the
Brahmputra Mail train from Gauhati collided with the Awadh-Assam
Express from New Delhi at Gaisan Station. Over 285 people were killed
and a 1000 injured. A faulty switch was suspected.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(SFC, 8/4/99, p.A9)(SFC,
8/5/99, p.A14)(AP, 2/18/04)
1999 Sep 20, In Taiwan a 7.6
earthquake killed an estimated 2,161 people and injured over 3,500.
2,600 people were believed to be buried alive. Aftershocks the next day
registered at 6.8 and 100,000 people were homeless.
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A1)(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A1)(WSJ,
9/22/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A1) (http://nisee.berkeley.edu/taiwan/)
1999 Oct 29, In eastern India
hundreds of people in Orissa state and the Bay of Bengal re-gion were
feared dead from 05B, the 2nd cyclone in 2 weeks. The number of dead
was esti-mated to reach 3,000 and 1.5 million people were homeless. The
official dead toll reached 924 on Nov 4. At least 8,000 people were
killed around the port city of Paradeep, where the storm made first
landfall. The death toll was predicted to climb past 10,000. 9,813
death were re-corded and the government stopped free rice distribution
after about 3 weeks.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A14)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11)(SFC,
11/5/99, p.D4)(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A24)(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A11)(SFC,
11/25/99, p.D6)
1999 Nov 12, In Turkey a 7.2 [7.1]
earthquake was centered at Duzce and 549 [834] people were killed and
3000 injured. Damage from the last 2 quakes was later estimated at
$10-25 bil-lion.
(SFC, 11/13/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A1)(SFC,
11/15/99, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/17/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/28/00, p.D6)(AP, 11/12/00)
1999 Nov 19, In Hyderabad, India
(Reuters), an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis has killed 133 people,
all of them children, in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh,
health officials said after reporting 10 new deaths.
(Excite, 11/20/99)
1999 Nov 25, The Chinese ferry,
Dashun, with 312 passengers caught fire and sank in stormy seas on the
Bohai Strait near Yantai in Shandong province. Only 22 passengers were
rescued. [see Nov 24]
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/26/99, p.A1)(SFC,
11/27/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 26, In Europe heavy winds
and rain killed at least 79 people with 44 dead in France, 17 dead in
Germany and 13 dead in Switzerland. A 2nd storm hit a day later.
Damages from the storms were later estimated to be at least $4 billion
with 90 people dead. The storms destroyed an estimated 400 million
trees across France.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/28/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/4/00, p.A11)(SFC, 1/15/00, p.A1)
2000 May 13, In the Netherlands a
fireworks depot exploded in Enschede and 20 people were killed with 589
injured. An estimated 100 tons of fireworks exploded and flattened some
400 houses.
(SFEC, 5/14/00, p.A12)(SFC, 5/15/00, p.A13)
2000 Nov 5, In Nigeria at least 96
people were killed when an oil tanker truck slammed into a line of
parked vehicles at a police check point between Ife and Ibadan.
(SFC, 11/7/00, p.B2)
2000 Nov 11, In Austria a fire
consumed a train in an Alpine tunnel at Kitzsteinhorn mountain near
Kaprun. 155 people, mostly children and teenagers, were killed.
(SFEC, 11/12/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/15/00, p.A1)(WSJ,
11/16/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 17, In South Africa 11
workers died from a fire while apparently locked in a floor polish
factory in Lenasia.
(SFEC, 11/19/00, p.C16)
2000 Nov 25, In Bangladesh 52
people were killed in a fire at the Chowdhury Knitwear Gar-ments
factory at Shibpur.
(SSFC, 11/26/00, p.D9)(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.D1)
2000 Dec 25, In central China as
many as 309 young people were killed at an unlicensed disco fire in
Louyang city.
(SFC, 12/26/00, p.C6)(AP, 12/25/01)
2001 Mar 6, In Nigeria 30 girls
died from a fire at the Gindiri Girls School in Jos. They were
reportedly locked in for the night so as not to mix with boys.
(WSJ, 3/8/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 5, Dutch driver Perry
Wacker was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in
prison in the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in his
truck in Dover, England.
(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Nov 5, Baxter said its
dialysis filters appear to have played a role in the deaths of 53
pa-tients in Texas, Nebraska, and 6 countries in Europe, south America
and Asia.
(WSJ, 11/6/01, p.A3)
2001 Nov 12, American Airlines
Flight 587, bound for the Dominican Republic, crashed in Belle Harbor
in the Far Rockaway district of Queens just after takeoff from JFK
Airport. All 260 crew and passengers were killed as well as a number of
people on the ground. The plane ap-peared to have fallen apart. The
vertical tail section cracked off when composite fittings failed
possibly due to turbulence from a preceding 747.
(SFC, 11/13/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A1)(SFC,
11/14/01, p.A14)(SFC, 11/15/01, p.A19)
2001 Nov 22, In the Gaza Strip 5
Palestinian boys (6-14) were killed when a bomb exploded beneath them
as a walked to school.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A17)
2001 Dec 26, In Brazil rescue
workers searched for victims of earth slides and flooding that killed
at least 49 people in Rio de Janeiro state.
(SFC, 12/27/01, p.A5)
2002 Feb 19, In Cairo, Egypt, an
overcrowded train en route from Cairo to the southern city of Luxor
burst into flames from a gas cannister. It then traveled 2 1/2 miles
before the driver stopped. 361 people were killed.
(SFC, 2/20/02, p.A9)(SFC, 2/21/02, p.A8)(AFP,
5/27/04)
2002 May 25, In India at least 60
people, on their way to a wedding, were electrocuted when their bus hit
a high-voltage power wire in Uttar Pradesh state.
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.A14)
2002 May 25, In Tenga, Mozambique,
a passenger and freight train collided and 196 people were killed.
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.A14)(SFC, 5/27/02, p.A7)
2002 Jul 27, In Lviv, Ukraine, a
fighter jet slammed onto the tarmac and sliced through a crowd watching
an air show, killing 85 people and injured 116.
(AP, 7/28/02)(WSJ, 8/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 29, In Guatemala a bus
carrying at least 45 passengers plunged into the Selegua River, and
authorities feared that most of them drowned.
(AP, 9/30/02)
2002 Oct 29, In Vietnam a fire
believed to have started in a disco swept through a five-storey
commercial building in south Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City killing at
least 48 people.
(Reuters, 10/29/02)
2003 Jan 6, In Mexico a bus with
failing brakes swerved off a mountain highway and into a deep ravine in
Zacatecas state, killing 18 people and injuring 23.
(AP, 1/7/03)
2003 Dec 26, A 6.6 earthquake
devastated the southeastern Iranian city of Bam, 630 miles southeast of
the capital Tehran. It leveled more than half the city's houses and its
historic mud-brick fortress. At least 25,000 people were killed and
over 10,000 injured. Iran appealed for in-ternational help and promised
to waive visas for foreign relief workers.
(AP, 12/26/03)(AP, 12/27/03)(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A3)
2003 Dr. James Gee of the Univ. of
Wisconsin authored “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About learning
and Literacy.”
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.86)
2004 Feb 18, In Neyshabur,
northeastern Iran, a 51-car train, carrying fuel, fertilizer and
in-dustrial chemicals, derailed and exploded. It rolled out of a
switchyard and eventually reach a speed of more than 90 mph before it
derailed, caught fire and exploded. The explosions de-stroyed five
villages killing at least 200 people and injuring hundreds more.
(AP, 2/19/04)(AP, 4/23/04)
2004 Apr 22, As many as 3,000
people were killed or injured when two trains carrying oil and
liquefied petroleum gas collided and exploded in a North Korean train
station.
(AP, 4/22/04)
2004 Apr 28, In Colombia a
construction crew's backhoe tumbled down a hillside onto a school bus
on the highway below, killing 21 children and two adults and injuring
36 others.
(AP, 4/29/04)
2004 Jul 16, In Kumbakonam,
southern India, a short circuit ignited a thatched roof and raged
through the Lord Krishna Middle School, killing at least 88 children
and injuring more than 100. The children were trapped inside a locked
building.
(AP, 7/17/04)(SFC, 7/17/04, p.A3)
2004 Jul 22, In northwestern
Turkey a new high-speed passenger train derailed killing 36 people and
injuring 81 others.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 25, The death toll from
monsoon flooding in South Asia reached 944.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 28, Deaths from monsoon
rains across South Asia reached 1,238.
(AP, 7/28/04)
2004 Aug 1, In Paraguay a
fast-spreading fire killed 420 people. Survivors of the inferno in a
crowded supermarket on the outskirts of Asuncion said that locked doors
slowed their escape. In 2008 a father and son who owned the supermarket
were sentenced to prison for manslaugh-ter and endangerment. In 2009
Supreme Court voted 2-1 in favor of a sentence of 12 years for Juan Pio
Paiva and 10 years for his son Daniel Paiva. In 2009 a court upheld a
two-year prison sentence for architect Bernardo Ismachowiez, designer
of the supermarket.
(AP, 8/2/04)(AP, 8/6/04)(AP, 2/3/08)(AP, 8/6/09)(AP,
8/29/09)
2004 Nov 28, In central China an
explosion tore through a coal mine, sending smoke from air vents and
trapping at least 166 miners in tunnels and shafts below without
communications. The death toll was later confirmed at 166.
(AP, 12/1/04)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.43)
2004 Dec 26, The world's most
powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered massive tidal waves that
slammed into villages and seaside resorts across southern and southeast
Asia. The initial estimated death toll of 9,000 soon rose to some
230,000 people in 14 countries. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake was the
world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 temblor
hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964. The epicenter was located 155
miles south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province on
Sumatra, and six miles under the seabed of the Indian Ocean. In
Indonesia at least 166,320 people were killed.
Bangladesh reported 2 killed; India: at least 9,691 deaths: thousands
were missing and possibly dead in India's remote Andaman and Nicobar
Islands. Indonesia: At least 101,318 people were killed on Sumatra
island and small islands off its coast. Kenya reported 1 killed.
Malaysia: At least 68 people, including an unknown number of foreign
tourists, were dead. Myanmar: At least 90 people were killed. Sri
Lanka: At least 30,680 were killed in government and rebel con-trolled
areas. The Maldives, an archipelago of 1,190 low-lying coral islands
and a tiny popula-tion of 280,000, at least 82 people were killed and
missing. At least 42 islands were flattened in the low-lying atoll
nation. Somalia: At least 298 were killed. Tanzania: At least 10
killed. Thai-land: The confirmed death toll for Thailand reached 5,322,
but many suspected Myanmar mi-grants were not counted.
(SFC, 12/28/04, p.A1)(AP, 12/30/04)(SSFC, 1/2/05,
p.A12)(AP, 1/7/05)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.41)(AP, 12/25/09)
2004 Dec 30, In Argentina a flare
lit during a rock concert ignited the foam ceiling of the Cro-magnon
Republic nightclub in Buenos Aires packed with teenagers, starting an
inferno that killed 194 people. Omar Chaban, promoter and owner of the
club, later faced charges of man-slaughter. In 2006 the Buenos Aires
city council sacked Mayor Anibal Ibarra for failing to root out a
culture of bribery and bureaucratic sloth. In 2009 judges convicted the
concert promoter, three city officials and a band manager in the fire.
The court absolved the Callejeros band of criminal responsibility for
the blaze caused by fans' fireworks.
(AP, 12/31/04)(AP, 12/30/05)(Econ, 3/11/06,
p.35)(AP, 8/20/09)
2005 Feb 14, A gas explosion in
China's northeast Sunjiawan mine killed 203 people in the deadliest
mining disaster reported since communist rule began in 1949.
(AP, 2/15/05)
2008 May 3, A tropical cyclone
slammed into Myanmar's main city of Yangon, ripping off roofs, felling
trees and raising fears of major casualties. Within days the death toll
soared above 22,000 and more than 41,000 others were missing as foreign
countries mobilized to rush in aid after the country's deadliest storm
on record.
(AP, 5/4/08)(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 7, The international
relief effort for hundreds of thousands of Myanmar cyclone vic-tims
picked up speed as India dispatched two planeloads of aid and Myanmar
authorized the UN to send its own air shipment.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 12, Myanmar state
television put the death toll for Cyclone Nargis at 31,938 with 29,770
people missing. The US White House said it was extending an extra 13
million dollars in aid as the first US flight of emergency supplies
landed in the country.
(AP, 5/12/08)(SFC, 5/13/08, p.A3)
2009 Jun 5, In southwestern China
at least 26 people were buried when part of a mountain collapsed in a
massive landslide in a remote area of Wulong county in Chongqing
municipality. 74 people were missing, including 47 workers at an iron
ore mine, 21 local residents, two tele-com company workers and four
passers-by. 27 people died and dozens were hurt when a packed commuter
bus burst into flames and was destroyed within minutes during the
morning rush hour in the southwestern city of Chengdu. Police later
said a 62-year-old unemployed man set the fire after carrying a bucket
of gasoline onto the bus.
(AP, 6/5/09)(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jun 5, In Mexico a
fast-moving fire killed 30 babies and toddlers at the ABC day care in
the city of Hermosillo, Sonora state, despite desperate attempts of
firefighters, who punched through the walls and fought their way
through flames to rescue babies, toddlers and others trapped inside. No
fire alarm or sprinkler system had gone off, according to witnesses.
One mother said a second door to the day care was bolted shut and
nobody could find the key. The final death toll reached 47.
(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Aug 6, Rescue workers
searched for missing people after the Princess Ashika ferry, car-rying
149 passengers and crew, sank overnight off the coast of Tonga. 93
people were missing and feared dead.
(SFC, 8/6/09, p.A2)(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Aug 9, In southern Taiwan
Typhoon Morakot spawned a mudslide engulfing the moun-tain village of
Shiao Lin, burying up to 600 people. The official death toll from
Morakot stood at 14. Another 51, not including the people in Shiao Lin.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Aug 14, Taiwan's president
said floods and mudslides unleashed by Typhoon Morakot last weekend
have killed about 500 people on the island, as he called on rescue
crews to step up their efforts. Ma said the death toll includes 120
confirmed deaths, and about 380 people be-lieved to be buried in the
debris of a landslide in Shiao Lin, the hardest-hit village.
(AP, 8/14/09)
2009 Aug 15, In Kuwait a fire at a
wedding tent killed 41 women and children consumed the structure in a
blazing inferno lasting just three minutes. A Kuwaiti spokesman later
said the fire was a criminal act by a perpetrator motivated by personal
reasons as 4 more victims died from their wounds. Local newspapers said
the bridegroom’s ex-wife was the arsonist.
(AP, 8/16/09)(AP, 8/18/09)(SFC, 8/18/09, p.A4)
2009 Aug 17, In Russia powerful
explosion took place during repair work at the Sayano-Shushinskaya
hydroelectric plant in southern Siberia. The death toll soon reached 47
with 28 others missing and feared dead after an engine room was
suddenly flooded. The accident pro-duced an oil spill and the slick
that floated down the Yenisei River.
(AP, 8/17/09)(AP, 8/18/09)(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Aug 20, Italian customs found
a boat with five Eritrean survivors of what it called a "shocking
tragedy. Around 75 African migrants died in the Mediterranean after
their stranded boat ran out of food and water.
(Reuters, 8/21/09)
2009 Aug 28, In Indonesia the
overcrowded ferry Sari Mulia capsized in the Negara River in the South
Kalimantan province, leaving at least 19 people dead and 15 others
missing.
(AP, 8/29/09)(AP, 8/30/09)
2009 Sep 5, The sightseeing boat
Ilinden, carrying 55 Bulgarian tourists, sank in Lake Ohrid on
Macedonia's western border, and 15 people drowned.
(AP, 9/5/09)(AFP, 9/6/09)
2009 Sep 6, In the southern
Philippines the Superferry 9, carrying nearly 1,000 passengers, sank
leaving at least 9 people dead. After rescue efforts one passenger was
left unaccounted.
(AFP, 9/6/09)(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 9, In Sierra Leone at
least 221 people, including many schoolchildren returning from
holidays, remained missing a day after the wooden Teh Teh ferry
capsized at sea. 39 people survived. 30 bodies were recovered and all
the missing were feared dead.
(AP, 9/10/09)(AP, 9/12/09)
2009 Sep 10, In India hundreds of
students, who were jammed into a narrow New Delhi school staircase,
panicked and set off a stampede that left five girls dead and 31 other
students injured. Mohammed Shahabuddin, a 12-year old snack vendor, had
to have his left leg ampu-tated after Bihar state railway police threw
him out of a moving train when he failed to pay them 10 rupees (20
cents) as a bribe. The boy had offered the policemen five rupees, which
was all the money he had.
(AP, 9/10/09)(AP, 9/11/09)
2009 Sep 14, In Pakistan at least
18 women and girls were killed in a stampede which broke out as charity
workers were handing out free flour to the poor in a crowded
neighborhood of Pakistan's financial capital Karachi.
(AP, 9/15/09)
2009 Sep 23, In central India an
820-foot (250m) chimney collapsed during bad weather kill-ing at least
26 people. More than 100 workers were feared dead at the site in Korba,
Chhattis-garh state, where the giant chimney came crashing down on the
plant's cafeteria as the work-ers had tea.
(AP, 9/24/09)(AFP, 9/24/09)
2009 Sep 29, A magnitude 8.0-8.3
earthquake struck about 120 miles south of the islands of Samoa, which
has about 180,000 people, and American Samoa, a US territory of 65,000.
Four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high roared ashore on
American Samoa, reaching up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland. At least
136 were killed in Samoa and at least 32 on Ameri-can Samoa and leaving
dozens missing. Authorities in Tonga, south of the Samoas, confirmed at
least 9 dead.
(AP, 9/30/09)(AFP, 10/1/09)(AP, 10/5/09)
2009 Oct 2, In southern India
flash floods and heavy rains killed at least 172 people in the state of
Karnataka and 50 in neighboring Andhra Pradesh. One more person was
killed in the southern seaside resort state of Goa as heavy rains
resulted in the collapse of 250 houses. Fifty of the victims drowned
when a rescue boat capsized.
(AFP, 10/3/09)(AP, 10/4/09)(AP, 10/5/09)
2009 Oct 9, In the northern
Philippines driving rain on the heels of back-to-back storms trig-gered
dozens of landslides across, burying more than 160 people, washing away
villages and leaving almost an entire province under water.
(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Oct 16, In southern India a
blaze erupted at a fireworks warehouse in Pallipat near Chennai,
killing at least 32 people and injuring 10 others as millions of Hindus
prepared to cele-brate Deepavali, the festival of lights.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Nov 21, In northern China a
gas explosion tore through the state-run Xinxing coal mine in
Heilongjiang province, killing at least 92 people and 16 missing as
rescuers worked hastily to save them.
(AP, 11/21/09)(AP, 11/22/09)
2009 Nov 22, Nearly 250 people
were pulled from the sea after the Dumai Express went down in heavy
rain and huge swells off Karimun island in the north of the Indonesian
archipelago. At least 29 people were killed.
(AFP, 11/22/09)
2009 Nov 25, In western Democratic
Republic of Congo at least 73 people were killed and others missing
after a logging boat sank in Lake Mai Ndombe in Bandundu province.
(Reuters, 11/28/09)
2009 Nov 27, In southern
Bangladesh the MV Coco-4, a triple-deck ferry packed with hun-dreds of
travelers heading home for an Islamic festival, capsized on the Tetulia
River as pas-sengers disembarked, leaving at least 77 dead and dozens
missing.
(AP, 11/28/09)(AFP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 4, In northern Bangladesh
an overcrowded passenger boat capsized after being hit by a small
ferry, leaving at least 46 people dead.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 5, In Russia a blaze
sparked by onstage fireworks tore through the Lame Horse nightclub
ceiling covered in decorative twigs and plastic sheeting, killing 136
people and criti-cally injuring about 90 in the industrial city of Perm
in the Ural Mountains. It was the country’s deadliest fire since the
fall of the Soviet Union.
(AP, 12/5/09)(AP, 12/10/09)
2009 Dec 7, In China 8 children
died in a crush after someone stumbled while hundreds of children
leaving their evening classes raced down the narrow stairway closest to
their dormitory in Xiangxiang city, Hunan province.
(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 14, In Nigeria 23 people
burned to death when a bus carrying mourners to a funeral collided with
a truck on a road in southwest Oyo state.
(AFP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 24, In southern India
police with bamboo batons clashed with crowds of protesters as outrage
over a delay in creating a new state (Telangana) erupted into violent
demonstrations in several cities in Andhra Pradesh. Over 40 people were
feared dead after the bridge under construction over the Chambal river
collapsed on the outskirts of Kota city in western Rajasthan state. 12
bodies were recovered and 30 others remained missing.
(AP, 12/24/09)(AFP, 12/25/09)(AP, 12/26/09)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Disaster, Tragedy
End of file-36pp
Top 16 NATURAL DISASTERS SINCE 1000 AD (excluding purely agricultural
Famine) - by numbers of deaths
1931 Jul-Nov, The Huang He River
(Huang Ho, Yellow River) in China flooded more than 40,000 sq. miles
and more than a million people were killed.
(HFA, '96,
p.71)(http://socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/geography/huangheriver.htm)
1201 Jul 5, An earthquake in Syria
and upper Egypt killed some 1.1 million people.
(www.geohaz.org/member/news/signif.htm)
1887 China’s Huang Ho (Huang He,
Yellow River) flooded and killed about 900,000 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_toll)
1556 Feb 2, The worst earthquake
in history devastated China’s Shanxi Province, killing 830,000 people.
(PCh, 1992,
p.190)(www.kepu.ac.cn/english/quake/ruins/rns03.html)
1970 Nov 12-13, A 240 KPH cyclone
hit the Ganges delta. Flooding followed and an esti-mated 300,000 in
East Pakistan (Bangladesh), were killed.
(SFEC, 9/5/04,
p.6)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1976 Jul 28, In China a 7.8-8.2
earthquake in the northern city of Tangshan killed at least 242,000
people. This was reported as the deadliest earthquake in the last 100
years.
(AP,
7/28/97)(http://history1900s.about.com/od/horribledisasters/a/tangshan.htm)
1737 Sep 19, In India’s Bay of
Bengal a cyclone destroyed some 20,000 ships. It was esti-mated that
more than 300,000 people died in the densely populated area called the
Sundar-bans. Later research indicated the population of Calcutta at the
time to be around 20,000. An estimate of the number of deaths was
revised down to about 3,000.
(http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/gif_images/1737Calcutta.pdf)
1850 Sep 22, An earthquake in
Sichuan, China, killed some 300,000 people.
(www.geohaz.org/member/news/signif.htm)
1927 May 27, An earthquake in
China’s Qinghai (Xining) Province left some 200,000 dead.
(www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/eq/faq/world.htm)
1920 Dec 16, In China an 8.6
earthquake in the northwestern provinces of Gansu and Shanxi caused
massive landslides and the deaths of 100,000- 200,000 people.
(SFC, 1/800,
p.A8)(www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/eq/faq/world.htm)
2004 Dec 26, The world's most
powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered massive tidal waves that
slammed into villages and seaside resorts across southern and southeast
Asia killed. The initial estimated death toll of 9,000 soon rose to
more than 157,663 people in 12 countries. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake
was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the larg-est since a 9.2
temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964. The epicenter was
located 155 miles south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh
province on Sumatra, and six miles under the seabed of the Indian
Ocean.
(AP, 12/27/04)(SFC, 12/28/04, p.A1)(AP, 1/14/05)
1923 Sep 1, The Japanese cities of
Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by the Great Kanto earthquake that
claimed 99,000-143,000 lives. The 7.9-8.3 quake off Tokyo's shoreline
killed some 99,300 people.
(AP,
9/1/97)(www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/eq/faq/world.htm)
1991 Apr 30-31, A cyclone in
Bangladesh killed an estimated 131,000 people. 9 million were left
homeless. Thousands of survivors died from hunger and water borne
disease.
(AP, 4/30/97)(SFC, 5/19/97,
p.A13)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1948 Oct 6, A 7.3 earthquake hit
Ashgebat, Turkeminstan, and killed an estimated 110,000 people.
Stalinist media at the time claimed only 35,000 deaths.
(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmosde.html)
1908 Dec 28, Some 70,000-100,000
people died in the Messina earthquake in Sicily. The government hired a
number of steamships, including the Florida, to ship survivors to
America.
(WUD, 1994, p.899)(WSJ, 2/8/99,
p.A21)(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmosde.html)
1755 Nov 1, An 8.7 earthquake hit
Lisbon, Portugal, and killed some 70,000 people. Heavy damage resulted
from ensuing fires and tsunami flooding in Morocco and nearly a quarter
of a million people were killed.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T7)(HN,
11/1/98)(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmosde.html)
1971 Aug 20-21, In Vietnam heavy
rains flooded the Red River delta and some 100,000 peo-ple were killed.
(www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001440.html)
End of file