Disasters timeline

  • Kissimmee Tornado Outbreak

    The 1998 Kissimmee tornado outbreak of February 22 - 23 1998, was the deadliest tornado event in Florida history. Forty-two people were killed and... Read more

  • Afghanistan Earthquake of May 1998

    The magnitude of the earthquake was 6.9 on the Richter scale. This was the second large earthquake in the area in 1998 after another earthquake on... Read more

  • Eschede Train Disaster

    About 6 km before the location of the accident, the tyre broke, but did not cause a derailment yet. About 200 m before the bridge, the tyre was... Read more

  • In-Flight Fire Causes Pilots to Lose Control on Swissair Flight 111

    Swissair Flight 111 (SR-111, SWR-111) was a Swissair McDonnell Douglas MD-11 on a scheduled airline flight from John F. Kennedy International... Read more

  • Jesse Pipeline Explosion

    On October 18, 1998 a pipeline explosion occurred in the community of Jesse, 290 kilometres southeast of Lagos, Nigeria. The cause of the blast has... Read more

  • Hurricane Mitch

    Hurricane Mitch was the most powerful hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (285 km/h). The... Read more

  • Gothenburg Discothèque Fire

    On the evening of October 29 1998, a fire developed in the premises of the Macedonian Association in Gothenburg Sweden. On the evening of the... Read more

  • Crash of Thai Airways Flight 261

    Thai Flight 261 left Bangkok at 17:40 for a 1:55min flight to Surat Thani. Weather in the Surat Thani area was poor with limited visibility and... Read more

  • Rainbow Bridge Collapse

    In Chongqing alone 1,600 people have died as a result of shoddy construction. Forty people died after falling 460 feet when the steel-and-concrete... Read more

  • Galtür Avalanche

    In February 1999, a catastrophic avalanche at Galtür in Austria claimed 31 lives. Over the next six months, Horizon followed a team of scientists... Read more

  • Izmit Earthquake of 1999

    The Izmit earthquake occurred at 00:01:39 UTC (3:01 a.m. local time), and was centered at 40.74 N., 29.86 E., which places the epicenter about 11... Read more

  • Athens Earthquake

    The 1999 Athens earthquake, registering a moment magnitude of 6.0, occurred on September 7, 1999, at 2:56:50 pm local time and lasted approximately... Read more

  • 921 Earthquake

    A large and damaging earthquake occurred in the northwest region of Taiwan at 17:47 GMT on September 20, 1999 (01:47 AM on September 21 Taiwan... Read more

  • Orissa Cyclone of 1999

    October 29, 1999, saw cyclonic storms with winds of 200 km per hour ripping through India’s eastern coast. Orissa, like many times in the past, was... Read more

  • EgyptAir Flight 990 Crash

    EgyptAir Flight 990 (MSR990) was a regularly-scheduled Los Angeles-New York-Cairo flight. On October 31, 1999, at around 01:50 EST, Flight 990... Read more

  • Vargas Tragedy

    In mid-December 1999, after several days of ever-increasing rains pouring over the Central Mountain Range and the piedmont within the span of 24... Read more

  • Mozambique Flood of 2000

    The 2000 Mozambique flood was a natural disaster that occurred in February and March 2000. The catastrophic flooding was caused by heavy rainfall... Read more

  • Enschede Fireworks Disaster

  • Pine Lake, Alberta Tornado

    On July 14, 2000 at approximately 7:00 PM an F3 tornado tore through the Green Acres Campground at Pine Lake in central Alberta killing 12 people... Read more

  • Russian Submarine K-141 Kursk Sinks in the Barents Sea

    It was a year ago that the Russian nuclear powered submarine, the Kursk, sank with all of its 118 crew. The cause of the accident has yet to be... Read more

  • Ostankino Tower Catches on Fire

    The tower caught fire on August 27, 2000, killing three people. In addition, television and radio signals were disrupted around Moscow. The fire... Read more

  • USS Cole is Bombed

    The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack against the United States Navy destroyer USS Cole on October 12, 2000, while it was harbored and refueled... Read more

  • Kaprun Disaster

    On the morning of 11 November 2000, 167 men, women and children boarded a funicular train that should have taken them to the Kitzsteinhorn... Read more

  • El Salvador Earthquake of February 2001

    At 14:22:05 UTC, the 6.6 quake struck with the epicentre at 15 miles (30 km) E of San Salvador, El Salvador (13.67N 88.93W) at the depth of 10 km.... Read more

  • Hintze Ribeiro Disaster

    The 116-year-old metal bridge at Entre-os-Rios linked the towns of Castelo de Paiva and Penafiel in Portugal. One Sunday evening, 4 March, a bus... Read more