Top Ten
Major Catastrophes

By David Hall

We've already had at least ten major natural disasters - with each one of them taking more than a million lives - and all in the last about 800 years, half of them in the last 70 years.  Yet so few people seem to be aware of these. More than once I've heard a major national television news report refer to the recent South Asian tsunami disaster as "the world's worst disaster".  As awful as that disaster was, the truth is there have been quite a few natural disasters that were even more destructive.

So what is a catastrophe?  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines catastrophe as:

a momentous tragic event ranging from extreme misfortune to utter overthrow or ruin;
a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth
a violent usually destructive natural event. 

Consider the following ten major natural disasters. These were certainly violent and destructive.

Location	Date	Aprox. Deaths	Type
Egypt and Syria	1201	1.1 million	Earthquake
Europe and beyond	1347-1350	25 million	Bubonic Plague
Western Hemisphere	16th - 18th cent.	XX million	American Indians from sicknesses from Europe
India	1769	10 million	Famine / Drought
China	1876 - 1879	9 million	Famine / Drought
China	1935	3.4 million*	Floods
World-wide	1918 - 19	50+ million**	Influenza
China	1958 - 61	20 million	Famine / Drought
Africa	1981 - 84	X million	Famine / Drought
North Korea	1995-98	3 million	Famine / Floods

* Some of these may not have been fatalities.
** Estimates of this one range from 35 million to 100 million.

Note also that malaria is NOT included in the list above.  The World Health Organization estimates that each year 300-500 million cases of malaria occur and that more than 1 million people die of malaria.  Why they don't want to say that in a typical year 2 to 3 million people die from malaria - mostly in tropical poor courtries - I'll leave for you to guess.

More notes for these and many other major disasters are available at: 66 of the World's Worst Disasters.

It should be noted that most of these figures are only rough estimates. As we have seen recently with the December 26th disaster, many people assisting with major disaster relief eventually stop keeping accurate records. They're just too overwhelmed, too tired, and so busy doing what has to be done and still survive themselves, that keeping detailed records ceases to be a priority for them. There are also some situations where government authorities for various reasons have tried to hide the true figures (like in China in 1976). Other situations involve more deaths from the "aftermath," so there are varying reports given by different sources.

Homeland Security and Christian Emergency Network encourage people to be ready.  See article at: Be Ready. We've also provided some additional information on how a person can prepare for a major disaster at: The Big One.

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See also:

66 of the World's Worst Disasters
What to do when your world crashes - Ten things you can do
Dealing with Death, God and Fatalism - by Lynn Green
Be Ready
Disaster Survival Tips - by Doug Copp
and The Big One

Sources:

BBC, Catholic Online, Fox News, Reuters, David Crossley, World Commission on Dams, 

David McCormick, The Times-Picayune, San Diego State University Geological Sciences, University of Wisconsin...

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David Hall is a graduate of Vanguard University of Southern California. He has served many years in Hawaii, Singapore, Samoa and New Zealand, with Christian ministries such as YFC, BGEA, Teen Challenge, and Youth With A Mission.