Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

List of natural disasters by death toll

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of natural disasters by death toll
Remove ads

A natural disaster is a sudden event that causes widespread destruction, major collateral damage, or loss of life, brought about by forces other than the acts of human beings. A natural disaster might be caused by earthquakes, flooding, volcanic eruption, landslide, hurricanes, etc. To be classified as a disaster, it must have profound environmental effects and/or loss of life and frequently causes financial loss.

Thumb
Global multihazard mortality risks and distribution (2005) for cyclones, drought, earthquakes, floods, landslides, and volcanoes (excluding heat waves, snowstorms, and other deadly hazards).
Remove ads

Ten deadliest natural disasters by highest estimated death toll excluding epidemics and famines

This list takes into account only the highest estimated death toll for each disaster and lists them accordingly. It does not include epidemics and famines. The list also does not include the 1938 Yellow River flood, which was caused by the deliberate destruction of dikes. The Shaanxi earthquake has not been included here which killed approximately 830,000 people in 1556.

More information Death toll (Highest estimate), Event ...
Remove ads

Deadliest natural disasters by year excluding epidemics and famines

20th century

More information Year, Death tolls ...

21st century

More information Year, Death toll ...
Remove ads

Lists of deadliest natural disasters by cause

Summarize
Perspective

Avalanche and landslides (landslips)

More information Rank, Death toll (estimate) ...

Disease outbreaks

Death counts are historical totals unless indicated otherwise. Events in boldface are ongoing.

More information Rank, Death toll (estimate) ...

Earthquakes

More information Rank, Death toll (estimate) ...

Famines

Note: Some of these famines may have been caused or partially caused by humans.

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Floods

Note: Some of these floods and landslides may be partially caused by humans – for example, by failure of dams, levees, seawalls or retaining walls.
This list does not include the man-made 1938 Yellow River flood caused entirely by a deliberate man-made act (an act of war, destroying dikes).

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Heat waves

Note: Measuring the number of deaths caused by a heat wave requires complicated statistical analysis, since heat waves tend to cause large numbers of deaths among people weakened by other conditions. As a result, the number of deaths is only known with any accuracy for heat waves in the modern era in countries with developed healthcare systems.

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Limnic eruptions

Note: Only 2 cases in recorded history.

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Tornadoes

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Tropical cyclones

Note: Earlier versions of this list have included the so-called 'Bombay Cyclone of 1882' in tenth position, but this supposed event has been proven to be a hoax.

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Tsunamis

Note: A possible tsunami in 1782 that caused about 40,000 deaths in the Taiwan Strait area may have been of "meteorological" origin (a cyclone).[60]

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Volcanic eruptions

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Wildfires

More information Rank, Death toll ...

Winter storms

More information Rank, Death toll (estimate) ...
Remove ads

See also

Other lists organized by death toll
Remove ads

Notes

  1. Estimate by Nova's sources are close to 4  million and yet Encarta's sources report as few as 1  million. Expert estimates report wide variance.
  2. In January 1977, Taiwan's Military Intelligence Bureau, unfriendly to the mainland Chinese government, claimed they obtained an internal document dated nine days after the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, that found 655,237 dead.[5] Scholars found 655,237 to be a "suspiciously accurate figure" just 9 days after the earthquake.[6] An internal document dated seven weeks after the earthquake that historians could verify found 263,299 deaths.[7] Modern historians estimated "at least 300,000".[7]
Remove ads

References

Loading content...
Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads