Natural Disasters Events

The 1939 Chillán earthquake was a major earthquake in south-central Chile. It is currently the single earthquake that has caused the most deaths in Chile. The earthquake occurred on 24 Ja...

On November 11, 1940, one of the deadliest blizzards this region has ever seen struck. The Armistice Day Storm killed 49 people in Minnesota, 150 nationwide. One of the most tragic chapte...

The most severe blizzard in modern history struck North Dakota and Minnesota. The blizzard hit on a Saturday night while many are traveling, and thus claimed 71 lives. Winds gusted to 75 ...

The tornadoes began in Texas. Just after the White Deer tornado dissipated, the first tornado of this event formed five miles (8 km) northwest of Pampa, Texas. The series of tornadoes wou...

Ambato was completely destroyed by a large earthquake on the afternoon of 5 August 1949. Tragically, the entire city and surrounding villages were reduced to rubble; in total 50 towns and...

A storm formed south of Iceland on January 30th, 1953 and it was not a cause for concern at the time because the barometric pressure was not unusually low. Hurricane-force winds blowing f...

A series of tornadoes in Peach, Houstoun, Marion, Twiggs and Bibb Counties left 310 people injured, 20 people dead (some sources say 19) and more than 15 million dollars in property damag...

The only problem, however, was that the "Resolution" was actually several miles south of their reported position. At about 8:42 AM., the flight reported in, "Air Pacific Easy, Roger, ...

The Blons avalanches in Austria was one of the worst mass burials by avalanche in recorded history. This happened on February 10 and February 11. The small village of Blons near Bluden...

Leaving a death toll in Hati of more than 200 and an injured list of at least 500, according to unofficial reports reaching here, Hurricane Hazel moved toward the island of Mayaguana in t...

A tornado outbreak occurred on May 24, 1957 from west eastern New Mexico into central Oklahoma. Like typical plains tornadoes, the tornadoes on this date moved from southwest to nor...

Hurricane Audrey was the first major hurricane of the 1957 Atlantic hurricane season. Audrey was the only storm to reach Category 4 status in June. A powerful hurricane, Audrey caused cat...

June 19, 1959: a fierce hurricane lashes the Gulf of St. Lawrence, wreaking awesome damage and disaster on the New Brunswick coast. The storm devastates the small port of Escuminac, as 13...

The 1960 Valdivia earthquake or Great Chilean Earthquake of 22 May, 1960 is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, rating 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale. It occurred in the early ...

The North Sea flood of 1962 was a natural disaster affecting mainly the coastal regions of Germany and in particular the city of Hamburg in the night from 16 February to 17 February 1962....

This great earthquake and ensuing tsunami took 128 lives (tsunami 113, earthquake 15), and caused about $311 million in property loss. Earthquake effects were heavy in many towns, includi...

A wide outbreak of 37 tornadoes killed 256 people, mostly in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana on Palm Sunday 1965. This was deadliest tornado outbreak in 33 years in the United States and has ...

On August 27th, reconnaissance aircraft found a tropical depression east of the Leeward Islands. By late in the day the system strengthened into a tropical storm, as it moved west-northwe...

The most recent influenza pandemic occurred in 1968 with the Hong Kong Flu (H3N2) outbreak, which resulted in nearly 34,000 deaths in the United States. The 1968/69 pandemic, which was mi...

Hurricane Camille, the USA's second strongest 20th century hurricane, hit the Gulf Coast in 1969. Camille became a hurricane on Aug. 15, 1969 south of Cuba and began quickly growing th...

The earthquake, which lasted for about 45 seconds, occurred at 15:23:31 local time. The epicenter of this quake was located 35 km off Peru coast in the Pacific Ocean. The quake having a m...

The February 1971 Mississippi Valley tornado outbreak was a deadly tornado outbreak that struck portions of the Lower Mississippi River Valley and the Southeastern United States on Februa...

On Christmas Eve 1971, a Peruvian airliner was struck by lightning in an area of heavy turbulence at 21,000 feet and crashed into a the Amazon. Miraculously, a German teenager survived th...

In one of the worst tornado tragedies to hit Bangladesh, 681 people were killed in the Manikganj subdivision of Dhaka district on 17 April 1973. The details of this tornado were provided ...

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the April 3-4, 1974, super tornado outbreak. It was the worst tornado outbreak in U.S. history with 148 twisters touching down in 13 states. Before...

By world standards, Tracy was a small but intense tropical cyclone at landfall, the radius of gale force winds being only about 50 km. The central pressure of 950 hPa was close to the ave...

On this day in 1976, members of the American Legion arrive in Philadelphia to celebrate the bicentennial of U.S. independence. Soon after, many began suffering from a mysterious form of p...

The earthquake was centered about 600 kilometers southeast of Tehran in the vicinity of Tabas. The death toll was about 15,000, many were injured, and damage was extensive. Tabas had the ...

May 18, 1980. On that fateful day, Mount St. Helens Volcano in Washington exploded violently after 2 months of intense earthquake activity and intermittent, relatively weak eruptions, cau...

In this era of tremendous tropical activity, we go back to a time when powerful hurricanes were far fewer in the Atlantic Basin. As a matter of fact, Hurricane Allen, which is the focus o...

The earthquake had a magnitude (Ms) of 6.8 to 7.0 with a focal depth of 20 km. The area of severest shaking (Modified Mercalli Intensity X) was bounded by San Angelo del Lombardi, Calitri...

On this day in 1982, a series of landslides near San Francisco, California, kills up to 33 people and closes the Golden Gate Bridge. In all, an amazing 18,000 different landslides took pl...

The 1982 North Yemen earthquake was a magnitude 6.0 earthquake that hit near the city of Dhamar, North Yemen (now part of Yemen) on December 13 1982. It was the first instrumentally recor...

The Armero tragedy (Spanish: Tragedia de Armero) was the major consequence of the November 13, 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Tolima, Colombia. Lahars (mudslides) from the mountain's...

The 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake struck the southern San Gabriel Valley and surrounding communities of southern California at 7:42 a.m. (PDT) on October 1, 1987. The magnitude 5.9 ear...

Hurricane Gilbert is the second most intense hurricane ever to have been observed in the Atlantic Basin, second only behind Hurricane Wilma of the incredibly eventful 2005 Atlantic hurric...

Two events about 3 seconds apart. At least 25,000 people killed, 19,000 injured and 500,000 homeless in the Leninakan-Spitak-Kirovakan area of northern Armenia, USSR. More than 20 towns a...

The time was 5:04 pm on October 17, 1989. Sixty-two thousand baseball fans were preparing to watch the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's in what was called the "Battle of the Bay", the...

The June 1990 Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak is a tornado outbreak that occurred in southern Illinois, central and southern Indiana, southwestern Ohio, and northern Kentucky on Saturd...

The Iran Earthquake, also known as the Manjil-Rudbar Earthquake occurred at 00:30:09 on June 21, 1990 . It caused widespread damage in areas within a one hundred kilometer radius of the e...

The 1990 Plainfield tornado was a devastating tornado that occurred on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 28, 1990. The violent tornado killed 29 people and injured 350. It is the only F5 t...

At least 138,000 people were killed by the storm, with the majority of deaths in the Chittagong area. Most deaths were from drowning, with the highest mortality among children and the eld...

Pinatubo unleashed three major destructive agents, namely: ashfall, pyroclastic flow and lahar that caused destruction to Central Luzon's infrastructure and rendered its vast agricultural...

On this day in 1991, Tropical Storm Thelma causes severe and massive floods in the Philippines, killing nearly 3,000 people. It is the second major disaster of the year for the island nat...

A blinding dust storm trapped hundreds of holiday motorists on Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley on Friday, leaving at least six people dead and more than 50 injured in a series of c...

At least 498 people killed, 2,000 injured, some missing; 2,200 houses heavily damaged at Erzincan. Landslides and avalanches blocked a number of roads in the epicentral area. Felt strongl...

Hurricane Andrew in 1992 proved to be one of the most destructive hurricanes ever to hit the United States. By the time Andrew made it to Florida’s shore, it had reached Category 4 status...

In the early morning hours of Saturday, March 13, 1993, the "Storm of the Century" hit Florida's West Coast with awesome fury. Hurricane-strength winds and a tidal surge as high as 12 fee...

The Paez river disaster was caused by a rather superficial earthquake (with a 10 km deep epicentre, 6.4 on the Richter scale) and subsequent mudslide that destroyed the small town of Paez...

The 7.2-magnitude Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 hit the Kobe area at 5:46 a.m. on Tuesday, January 17, leaving in its wake more than 5200 deaths, 30,000 injured, 300,000 homeless, and ...