Buzz
Natural disasters captivate us all, as evidenced by the overwhelming media attention they receive, with Haiti being a notable example. We all live in fear of the moment we might face one, and this is likely why they hold such a strong grip on our fascination. This list highlights ten of the most frightening natural disasters ever recorded.
10. Typhoon Tip
Typhoons in the Pacific are typically more intense than hurricanes in the Atlantic, as the former can gain more strength over vast stretches of water.
On October 12, 1979, Typhoon Tip made history by setting the record for the lowest air pressure ever recorded at sea level on Earth: 870 mbars. For reference, the standard sea level air pressure is 1,013.25 mbars, while Hurricane Andrew reached 922 mbars.
Tip reached a sustained wind speed of 190 mph for one minute. It claimed 99 lives, a relatively low number compared to other disasters, though this must be understood in the context of the extensive warning period before the typhoon hit.
Of the 99 fatalities, 44 were fishermen caught in the open Pacific. Typhoon Tip also sank or grounded eight ships, one of which was a massive freighter torn in half by the storm. Not only was it the most powerful cyclone, but it was also the largest ever recorded, spanning half the size of the United States, excluding Alaska.
9. The Lake Nyos Limnic Eruption
Limnic eruptions are among the most unusual natural disasters known. The conditions needed for one to happen are so rare that these events are extremely infrequent. Lake Nyos is located in a remote area of the Cameroonian jungle. Though not very large, measuring only 1.2 miles by 0.75 miles, it is quite deep at 682 feet. Beneath the lake's bed, a magma chamber leaks carbon dioxide into the water, transforming it into carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide is 1.5 times denser than air, which is why it remains trapped at the lake's bottom unless pushed upward by another force. Only three such lakes are known to exist on Earth.
On August 21, 1986, the carbon dioxide at the bottom of Lake Nyos erupted all at once, releasing 1.6 million tons of gas. The cloud of carbon dioxide, being heavier than air, followed the land's contours, rushing out of the lake at 60 mph. It then traveled downhill at speeds of up to 30 mph, displacing all the oxygen in nearby villages, suffocating between 1,700 and 1,800 people, as well as countless livestock.
The force of the gas eruption also caused the lake’s water to surge in an 80-foot high tsunami, which stripped the trees, shrubs, and soil off one side of the shoreline.
8. The 1960 Chile Earthquake
The most powerful earthquake ever recorded struck near Valdivia, Chile, on May 22, 1960, at 2:11 PM local time. Approximately 6,000 people lost their lives, though the death toll could have been much higher were it not for Chile's preparedness for earthquakes and the remote location of the epicenter.
Eyewitnesses described the event as though God had taken one end of the world like a rope and hurled it with all his might. In Valdivia, 40% of the homes were flattened. The nearby Cordon Caulle volcano, an active volcano, was torn open and erupted as a result.
The earthquake registered a magnitude of 9.5, and 35-foot-high waves were recorded 6,000 miles away. Of all the seismic energy released in the 20th Century, including the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, 25% was released during the 1960 Chile earthquake.
The quake generated 82-foot-high waves that swept along the Chilean coast. Hilo, Hawaii, was destroyed. The earthquake released twice the surface energy of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, equal to 178 billion tons of TNT, enough to power the entire United States for 740 years at 2005 energy consumption levels.
7. The 2003 European Heat Wave
Europe is not known for scorching summers. In fact, extreme heat is a rarity there. But in 2003, Europe was struck by a heatwave so intense that it would leave even the southeastern United States or the Australian outback in awe.
This writer hails from North Carolina, where sweltering summers are the norm, and preparation for them is routine. In contrast, most homes built in Europe within the 50 years prior to 2003 lacked air conditioning, as it had never been necessary. However, since then, more than half of these homes have been equipped to handle future heatwaves.
In France alone, the heatwave claimed at least 14,802 lives, with many victims being elderly individuals in nursing homes or living in homes without cooling systems. The heatwave also dried up much of Europe, sparking devastating forest fires in Portugal, which caused around 2,000 fatalities.
Germany, which usually enjoys cold or mild weather, saw about 300 deaths; Spain, where temperatures rarely reach the 90s Fahrenheit, recorded 141 deaths; and the Netherlands suffered 1,500 fatalities. Numerous temperature records dating back to the 1700s were shattered, only to be surpassed a week later: 106.7°F in Brono, Switzerland, causing Alpine glaciers to melt and trigger flash floods. Bavaria, Germany hit 104.7°F, Paris reached 103°F, and Edinburgh, Scotland set a new high of 91.2°F, a truly unprecedented figure for the region.
The wine harvest was brought forward by a month to preserve the grapes. Meanwhile, 75% of Ukraine’s wheat crops were scorched by the relentless heat.
6. The Storm of the Century
From March 12 to 13, 1993, a massive cyclonic storm formed off the eastern coast of the United States, so expansive that it unleashed a strange mix of extreme weather conditions.
It is rare for a single storm system to cause blizzards stretching from the Canada/U.S. border all the way to Birmingham, Alabama, but this one did. Birmingham received 12 to 16 inches of snow in just one day and night, accompanied by hurricane-force winds and a temperature drop of 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The Florida Panhandle saw up to 4 inches of snow, and strangely, 5 people were killed by tornadoes amid the blizzard.
The Appalachian regions of North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia were struck with up to feet of snow, with drifts reaching as high as 35 feet. The power outages caused by fallen trees resulted in 300 deaths across the eastern U.S. Wind gusts of 100 mph even reached as far as Havana, Cuba.
5. The Great Flood of 1931
The deadliest natural disaster ever recorded took place during the winter, spring, and summer of 1931 in central China. The Yangtze, Yellow, and Huai rivers all experienced catastrophic flooding. Unusually heavy winter snowstorms in the mountains caused the snow to melt rapidly in the spring, swelling the rivers to dangerous levels.
Spring rains worsened the situation. The cyclone season, which typically sees only two storms per year, brought 10 storms, with 7 of them occurring in July. This immense volume of water caused the three major rivers, especially the Yellow River, to overflow. The floods affected a vast, flat region of China, leading to an estimated 3.7 to 4 million deaths from drowning or starvation.
Nanjing, which was the capital of China at the time, became an island, engulfed by more than 100,000 square kilometers of water, an area larger than the entire state of Indiana or all of Portugal.
4. The Tunguska Explosion
On June 30, 1908, around 7:14 AM local time, an asteroid or comet crashed over the lower Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, a remote region of Siberia, detonating at an altitude between 3 to 6 miles above the ground.
The explosion unleashed the same energy as the largest thermonuclear bomb ever tested by the United States, the Castle Bravo bomb, with a yield of 10-15 megatons. This was about one-third the power of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. The airburst flattened roughly 80 million trees across 772 square miles of Siberian taiga, and the event would have registered 5.0 on the Richter Scale.
Fortunately, there were no fatalities as the closest observers were about 40 miles away from the explosion's epicenter. They described seeing a brilliant blue streak of light across the sky, almost as bright as the sun, followed by a flash and a sound resembling artillery fire right next to them.
Within a 100-mile radius of the detonation, people were knocked off their feet by the shockwave. Their clothes were burned off, windows shattered, and trees were scorched and uprooted. Even iron locks on barn doors were torn off.
The force of the explosion was more than enough to wipe out the entire population of Japan, the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, or even the New England megalopolis of the United States, stretching from Boston to Washington, D.C.
3. The 1958 Lituya Bay Megatsunami
Before July 9, 1958, megatsunamis were purely theoretical. That changed when a massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Lituya Bay, a narrow fjord in Alaska’s panhandle, caused 90 million tons of rock and glacial ice to fall off a mountainside. This massive chunk dropped almost vertically into the bay, creating a colossal splash.
The resulting wave reached a staggering 1,720 feet in height, the highest ever recorded on Earth. To put that into perspective, it's 470 feet taller than the Empire State Building's antenna. It was higher than all but five of the world’s tallest skyscrapers today, and experts agree that it had enough force to tear these buildings from their foundations.
As the wave surged toward the open ocean, the narrowness of the bay caused it to funnel up the surrounding mountainsides. The force of the wave snapped trees, some 6 feet thick, off at heights between 3 and 6 feet above the ground, as high as 1,720 feet around the bay.
At the time of the wave, there were three fishing boats near the mouth of the bay. The wave sank one, killing the two men aboard. The other two boats were fortunate enough to be carried up the mountainsides by the wave, only to be washed back into the bay.
One of the boats was anchored, and the wave snapped its 3-foot-thick iron anchor chain like it was thread. A survivor estimated that it took only 2 seconds for the wave to travel from the island in the bay to his boat. If correct, this means the wave was traveling at a speed of 600 mph.
The wave stripped away everything—trees, grass, and soil—right down to the bedrock, before finally dissipating into the open ocean.
2. The 1815 Tambora Eruption
Mount Tambora, located on Sumbawa Island in southern Indonesia, erupted between April 6 and 11, 1815. The most intense activity occurred between April 10 and 11. This eruption is rated a 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, making it the most powerful in recorded history—four times more powerful than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.
The Tambora eruption unleashed an energy 52,000 times greater than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The entire island of Sumbawa was scorched, its vegetation either burned or uprooted and swept into the sea. Massive rafts of trees—up to 3 miles wide—formed from the ash and debris. One such raft, composed of pumice and wood, even drifted all the way to Calcutta, India.
The eruption claimed 92,000 lives, mostly from starvation, marking the deadliest volcanic eruption in recorded history.
The fine ash from the eruption lingered in the atmosphere for 3 years, blanketing the entire planet and creating vibrant sunsets. It also triggered the notorious ‘Year without a Summer’ across North America and Europe. This ash interfered with the global climate, causing temperatures to drop by an average of 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, a significant cooling effect.
The year 1816 was the coldest of the 1810s, which itself was the coldest decade of the century due to the eruption. In Quebec City, 12 inches of snow fell between June 6 and 10, 1816. Agricultural crops across the Northern Hemisphere suffered massive damage.
1. The 1999 Bridge Creek F5 Tornado
On May 3, 1999, a three-day tornado outbreak began with a devastating F5 tornado at around 7:12 PM local time. This was the strongest windstorm ever recorded, with winds reaching 318 mph. It claimed 36 lives and traveled northeast from Amber, Oklahoma, through Bridge Creek and Moore. Had the tornado turned toward Oklahoma City, it likely would have resulted in far more fatalities and would have become the most costly tornado in history.
Around 8,000 homes were destroyed. The tornado tore through large vehicles and sent debris flying, wrapping it around telephone poles, hurling it through warehouses, embedding 2x4s into wheel hubs, and even piercing 8-inch-thick pine trees with pine straw.
For the first time, local weather stations warned over the radio that those who weren't securely underground would not survive. Taking cover under mattresses, in bathtubs, ditches, or even under overpasses would not be enough to survive this monster tornado.
