Worst disaster since?

[triggercut]

Forgive me if this has been discussed in the other tsunami threads, but I didn't wish to wade through some of the politicking in them to find out....

Had this discussion via email yesterday. With 155,000 dead, and the UN saying that number could "soar", this is the worst disaster (in terms of lives lost) since...what? Not counting wars or political purges (Joe Stalin and Chairman Mao, I'm looking at you two.)

The first thing that occurred to me was the 1918 influenza/grippe epidemic. I'm not good with my Asian earthquakes though, so perhaps there was one comparable?

(I ask this not meaning to trivialize the plight of the thousands killed, injured, or left destitute by the tsunami. Quite the opposite--we originally got around to this question by talking about what each of us were doing in response as individuals, and then it became "you gotta do something. This is the worst disaster since...." and then we realized that this is probably the greatest loss of life to a "disaster" in modern history. So, I'm just curious, and thought I'd pick the hive mind here for their thoughts.)

[Mr. Fed]

Teh Earth is one mean bitch

Deadliest earthquakes
The world's deadliest earthquake may have been the great Honan Shensi province earthquake in China, 1556. Estimates put the total death toll at 830,000.


Year Location Magnitude Persons killed
1976 Tangshan, China 7.5 655,000
1927 Qinghai, China 7.7 200,000
1923 Tokyo, Japan 7.9 143,000
1908 Messina, Italy 6.9 110,000
1920 Northern China 8.3 100,000
1932 Gansu, China 7.6 70,000
1970 Peru 8.0 54,000
1990 Iran 7.9 50,000
1935 Quetta, Pakistan 8.1 30,000
1939 Erzincan, Turkey 7.7 30,000

[Defiant]

Death tolls:

These are the most recent large scale natural disasters:

# 400,000 - Tangshan earthquake (China, 1976)

# 138,000 - cyclone, (Chittagong Bangladesh, 1991)

[triggercut]

Good lord.

I sort of knew there was a terrible earthquake in China within the past 30 years, but had no idea the death toll was so high.

[CSL]

Good lord.

I sort of knew there was a terrible earthquake in China within the past 30 years, but had no idea the death toll was so high.

Thats because the communists don't want you to know.

[Kelric]

Thank goodness for the relatively quiet northeastern seaboard plate. Of course they do say The Big One(tm) will hit eventually around here. Ya know, now or 10,000 years from now.

[tiny ogre]

When everything east of the San Andreas finally slides into the Atlantic, then let's see how you feel about your supposedly stable North American plate.

Pretty sure that's how it's supposed to go. NA NA NA NA I can't hear you.

[knob]

Isn't the San Andreas/California area the Pacific plate? It's not our fault if you wanted to be different and live on someone elses plate.

[GungHo]

Heard em talkig about this on the radio the other day, and as far as the worst natural disaster EVER; there was a flood in China(dont remember the year, sorry) but it killed 3.5 MILLION people. Unbelieveable.

On the Yanghtze(sp?) River, I do believe.

[dbt1949]

So I suppose Fed Ex missing a delivery at my house is not considered a disaster?

[McNutt]

Heard em talkig about this on the radio the other day, and as far as the worst natural disaster EVER; there was a flood in China(dont remember the year, sorry) but it killed 3.5 MILLION people. Unbelieveable.

On the Yanghtze(sp?) River, I do believe.

I think that was about 70 years ago, but it did kill that many people. Bangladesh has seen it's share of disasters too. In addition to the flooding that killed over 138,000 in 1991, I think they lost like 300,000 in 1970 to an even bigger cyclone.

[Smoove_B]

Teh Earth is one mean bitch

Deadliest earthquakes
The world's deadliest earthquake may have been the great Honan Shensi province earthquake in China, 1556. Estimates put the total death toll at 830,000.


Year Location Magnitude Persons killed
1976 Tangshan, China 7.5 655,000
1927 Qinghai, China 7.7 200,000
1923 Tokyo, Japan 7.9 143,000
1908 Messina, Italy 6.9 110,000
1920 Northern China 8.3 100,000
1932 Gansu, China 7.6 70,000
1970 Peru 8.0 54,000
1990 Iran 7.9 50,000
1935 Quetta, Pakistan 8.1 30,000
1939 Erzincan, Turkey 7.7 30,000

The death estimates for the 1918-19 influenza pandemic range between 20 and 40 million people.

Viruses pwn.

[CSL]

Heard em talkig about this on the radio the other day, and as far as the worst natural disaster EVER; there was a flood in China(dont remember the year, sorry) but it killed 3.5 MILLION people. Unbelieveable.

On the Yanghtze(sp?) River, I do believe.

Are you sure your not referring to the accident in I believe the 60's where two of the dams broke on the Yangtze and killed around 250,000?

[Kraken]

The first thing that occurred to me was the 1918 influenza/grippe epidemic.

It was brought to my attention that the Red Sox won the World Series last year. The last time they did that was [twilight zone music] 1918.[/twilight zone music] -- the same 1918, believe it or not, as the 1918 influenza epidemic.

We all know that historic events come in threes. The Great Molasses Flood was on Jan. 15, 1919. So hold onto your seat. We aren't done yet.

[Kael]

From the article Ironrod linked, from the 1918 New York times report on the story:

A dull, muffled roar gave but an instant's warning before the top of the tank was blown into the air. The circular wall broke into two great segments of sheet iron which were pulled in opposite directions. Two million gallons of molasses rushed over the streets and converted into a sticky mass the wreckage of several small buildings which had been smashed by the force of the explosion.
The greatest mortality apparently occurred in one of the city buildings where a score of municipal employees were eating their lunch. The building was demolished and the wreckage was hurled fifty yards. The other city building, which had an office on the ground floor and a tenement above, was similarly torn from its foundations.

One of the sections of the tank wall fell on the firehouse which was nearby. The building was crushed and three firemen were buried in the ruins.

How come everytime I read writing from the 1800-early 1900's I am so dissapointed with how far our writing has fallen. Shouldn't we be getting better at this stuff?

[LawBeefaroni]

Heard em talkig about this on the radio the other day, and as far as the worst natural disaster EVER; there was a flood in China(dont remember the year, sorry) but it killed 3.5 MILLION people. Unbelieveable.

On the Yanghtze(sp?) River, I do believe.

The Yanghtze floods kill thousands on a regular basis. Millions are left homeless (14 million this year?). And that's just the official reported statistics. If history teaches us anything, Chinese official reports are very low. Estimates put the 1954 flood death total (including resultant starvation and disease) at well over 100,000, possibly over 200,000. The official figure is around 30,000.

[Kraken]

How come everytime I read writing from the 1800-early 1900's I am so dissapointed with how far our writing has fallen. Shouldn't we be getting better at this stuff?

Blame Hemingway. He made terse writing all the rage. Simple declaratives, with little punctutation and few adjectives. He killed florid writing.

A Visit from Saint Nicholas (In the Ernest Hemingway Manner)
by James Thurber
Issue of 1927-12-24
Posted 2003-12-15
This classic New Yorker holiday story, from 1927, appears in the anthology “Christmas at The New Yorker,” which was published by Random House.

It was the night before Christmas. The house was very quiet. No creatures were stirring in the house. There weren’t even any mice stirring. The stockings had been hung carefully by the chimney. The children hoped that Saint Nicholas would come and fill them.

The children were in their beds. Their beds were in the room next to ours. Mamma and I were in our beds. Mamma wore a kerchief. I had my cap on. I could hear the children moving. We didn’t move. We wanted the children to think we were asleep.

It goes on. But you get the idea.

[McNutt]

Heard em talkig about this on the radio the other day, and as far as the worst natural disaster EVER; there was a flood in China(dont remember the year, sorry) but it killed 3.5 MILLION people. Unbelieveable.

On the Yanghtze(sp?) River, I do believe.

Are you sure your not referring to the accident in I believe the 60's where two of the dams broke on the Yangtze and killed around 250,000?

He's referring to a very large flood that drowned a lot of people, but killed the majority of them from the ensuing famine. That's separate from the dam tragedy.

[moss_icon]

How come everytime I read writing from the 1800-early 1900's I am so dissapointed with how far our writing has fallen. Shouldn't we be getting better at this stuff?

you're definitely reading the wrong modern authors then.