The deadliest natural disasters of the modern era

2023-11-01 22:00:36

Los natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tsunamis and hurricanes are common throughout the world although there are some that are remembered for being the deadlier. Everything starts from the human victims they caused, in addition to the thousands of people affected and injured that each one caused.

Nature never forgives and when combined with other factors such as poor urban infrastructure and resource exploitation the consequences can be catastrophic. For this reason, it is necessary to know the past to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Natural disasters, which have been the deadliest?

First of all, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) affirms that disasters are not always natural but are the result of omissions and lack of prevention. Even most of the occasions are generated by man’s own action.

To measure the impact of this type of phenomena, classifications have been created. In the case of the earthquakes There is Richter scale which measures telluric movements. Something quite similar happens with the hurricanes and the Saffir-Simpson scale.

The power of nature combined with the destruction of man

With respect to deadliest natural disasters of the modern era, Statesman carried out an analysis that covers from 1950 to the present. What was obtained was that the Cyclone Bhola that occurred in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) in 1970 is the most catastrophic.

This phenomenon caused winds of up to 240 kilometers per hour and according to official information caused 300,000 deaths. Although beyond the impact of nature, infrastructure and government management also influenced.

For its part, telluric movements are quite common in China because it is located in a seismic zone. Although within this classification the most deadly has been earthquake that occurred in 1976. The official report indicates that it caused 242,769 fatalities, while those injured and directly affected were more than one million people.

This region of the planet is one of the most vulnerable to suffering catastrophes of this type. Another of the deadliest natural disasters that have been reported is the Typhoon Nina which occurred in the territories of Taiwan and China in 1975.

Upon landfall it caused winds exceeding 185 kilometers per hour. At the same time, the rains it generated were catastrophic and ultimately left 230,029 dead.

At the top we share a graph that contains a list of the 10 deadliest natural disasters of the modern era. In all cases they are examples that these phenomena should never be underestimated.

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