Natural Disasters

A global archive of the Earth at its most violent, every kind of natural disaster and freak-weather event, from ancient eruptions to last week's storms. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires, volcanoes, landslides, droughts, blizzards, freak lightning, dust storms, locust plagues, coral bleaching and more, documented from all over the world in real footage and photographs, in true chronological order.

A chronological documentary of 873 moments spanning 1910–2026 on Loreline.

Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-09-20

1. 1910-01-28 - The Great Flood of Paris. The Seine burst its banks in 1910, submerging Paris streets for weeks in the city's worst modern flood.
2. 1927-04-15 - The 1927 Great Mississippi Flood. The most destructive river flood in U.S. history inundated 70,000 square km and displaced 630,000.
3. 1928-11-02 - The 1928 Etna eruption. An eruption of Mount Etna destroyed the town of Mascali in 1928, the only town lost to Etna in modern times.
4. 1933-08-14 - The Tillamook Burn. A series of huge fires burned Oregon's Tillamook forest repeatedly from 1933, later famously replanted.
5. 1934-05-01 - The Dust Bowl. Years of drought and poor farming turned the American Great Plains to dust in the 1930s, driving hundreds of thousands from their land.
6. 1938-09-21 - The 1938 New England hurricane. The 'Long Island Express' struck New England without warning, killing nearly 700.
7. 1939-01-24 - The 1939 Chillán earthquake. An earthquake destroyed the Chilean city of Chillán in 1939, one of the country's deadliest.
8. 1943-02-20 - The birth of Parícutin. A volcano burst out of a Mexican cornfield in 1943 and grew before farmers' eyes, one of the great geological events of the century.
9. 1944-01-15 - The 1944 San Juan earthquake. An earthquake destroyed the Argentine city of San Juan in 1944, a disaster that helped launch Juan Perón.
10. 1946-04-01 - The tsunami that changed Hawaii. The 1946 tsunami's surprise attack on Hilo led to the founding of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System.
11. 1947-09-15 - The Kathleen Typhoon floods. Typhoon Kathleen's floods devastated the Kanto plain around Tokyo in 1947.
12. 1947-10-17 - The 1947 Maine fires. Wildfires swept coastal Maine in the dry autumn of 1947, burning Bar Harbor and much of Acadia.
13. 1947-12-26 - The 1947 New York blizzard. A surprise blizzard dumped record snow on New York City the day after Christmas 1947.
14. 1951-11-14 - The 1951 Polesine flood. The Po River burst its banks in 1951, flooding the Polesine region of northern Italy and displacing 180,000.
15. 1952-08-15 - The Lynmouth flood. A flash flood roared down the East and West Lyn rivers into the Devon village of Lynmouth, killing 34.
16. 1954-01-11 - The 1954 Blons avalanches. Two avalanches struck the Austrian village of Blons on the same day, killing over 100.
17. 1954-08-31 - Hurricane Carol. 1954, weeks before Hurricane Edna followed.
18. 1955 - The North African locust invasions. Desert-locust swarms have swept North Africa and the Middle East for millennia, devouring everything green.
19. 1957-06-27 - Hurricane Audrey. 's surge struck southwestern Louisiana with little warning in 1957, killing hundreds.
20. 1959 - Typhoon Mireille. 20th century, in 1991.
21. 1959-09-26 - Typhoon Vera (Isewan). Japan's deadliest typhoon struck Nagoya with a huge storm surge, killing over 5,000.
22. 1960-02-29 - The 1960 Agadir earthquake. A moderate but shallow quake destroyed the Moroccan city of Agadir, killing a third of its population.
23. 1960-05-22 - The 1960 Pacific tsunami. The Valdivia quake sent tsunamis across the Pacific that killed people in Chile, Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.
24. 1960-09-09 - Hurricane Donna. 1960.
25. 1962-01-10 - The 1962 Huascarán avalanche. An ice avalanche from Peru's Huascarán mountain buried the town of Ranrahirca, killing about 4,000.
26. 1962-09-01 - Typhoon Wanda. 's Tolo Harbour in 1962.
27. 1963 - The Big Freeze of 1962-63. The coldest winter in Britain in over 200 years froze the sea and buried the country in snow for months.
28. 1963-10-04 - Hurricane Flora. 1963, its rains killing thousands.
29. 1963-11-14 - The birth of Surtsey. A new island, Surtsey, rose from the sea off Iceland in 1963 in a spectacular undersea eruption.
30. 1964-03-27 - The 1964 Alaska earthquake. The magnitude 9.2 Good Friday earthquake, the strongest in North American history, devastated Anchorage.
31. 1965-09-08 - Hurricane Betsy. 'Billion Dollar Betsy' flooded New Orleans in 1965, a grim rehearsal for Katrina forty years later.
32. 1965-09-28 - The 1965 Taal eruption. A violent eruption of the Philippines' Taal volcano killed hundreds on its lake island.
33. 1966 - The 1972 Hong Kong landslides. Torrential rain triggered deadly landslides across Hong Kong, including the Kotewall Road collapse.
34. 1966-10-14 - The 1966 Belmond tornado. A tornado destroyed much of the Iowa town of Belmond in 1966.
35. 1967-11-25 - The 1967 Lisbon floods. Flash floods killed hundreds around Lisbon, Portugal, in a single night in 1967, a long-hidden disaster.
36. 1968 - The 1963 Skopje earthquake. A quake destroyed 80% of Skopje in Yugoslavia (now North Macedonia), killing over 1,000.
37. 1970-11-12 - The 1970 Bhola cyclone. A cyclone struck the Ganges Delta of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 300,000-500,000, the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded.
38. 1971-05-04 - The 1971 Saint-Jean-Vianney landslide. A quick-clay collapse swallowed 40 homes in the Quebec village of Saint-Jean-Vianney, killing 31.
39. 1971 - Dutch elm disease. A fungus spread by beetles killed most of the elm trees of Europe and North America in the 20th century.
40. 1971-08-01 - The 1971 Red River flood. The Red River delta flood of 1971 is considered one of the worst of the 20th century in Vietnam.
41. 1972-12-23 - The 1972 Managua earthquake. An earthquake destroyed the centre of Managua, Nicaragua, on Christmas Eve, killing over 10,000.
42. 1973-01-23 - The Heimaey eruption. An eruption on Iceland's Heimaey island in 1973 buried a fishing town, and residents pumped seawater to stop the lava.
43. 1973 - The Sahel droughts. Decades of drought across Africa's Sahel from the late 1960s brought famine to Ethiopia, Sudan and the Sahara's edge.
44. 1974-09-18 - Hurricane Fifi. 's rains caused catastrophic flooding in Honduras, killing thousands.
45. 1976-02-04 - The 1976 Guatemala earthquake. A quake along the Motagua Fault killed over 23,000 in Guatemala.
46. 1976-06-05 - The Teton Dam failure. Idaho's brand-new Teton Dam collapsed as it filled, filmed as the flood swept downstream.
47. 1976-07-28 - The 1976 Tangshan earthquake. A magnitude 7.6 quake struck the sleeping Chinese city of Tangshan, killing at least 242,000 people, one of the deadliest earthquakes in recorded history.
48. 1977-01-28 - The Blizzard of 1977. A blizzard with hurricane-force winds buried Buffalo, New York, in one of the worst U.S. snow disasters.
49. 1977-11-23 - The 1977 Caucete earthquake. An earthquake struck the San Juan region of Argentina in 1977, causing widespread liquefaction.
50. 1978-02-05 - The Blizzard of 1978. A historic blizzard buried the U.S. Northeast, stranding thousands on highways around Boston.
51. 1978-09-16 - The 1978 Tabas earthquake. An earthquake obliterated the Iranian desert town of Tabas, killing around 15,000.
52. 1979-12-12 - The 1979 Tumaco tsunami. An earthquake off Colombia and Ecuador sent a tsunami into the town of Tumaco in 1979.
53. 1980-06-01 - The 1980 US heat wave. A brutal heat wave and drought killed over 1,700 across the central and southern U.S. in 1980.
54. 1980-08-07 - Hurricane Allen. 1980.
55. 1980-10-10 - The 1980 El Asnam earthquake. An earthquake destroyed the Algerian city of El Asnam (Chlef) in 1980, killing thousands.
56. 1980-11-23 - The 1980 Irpinia earthquake. A quake struck the Campania and Basilicata regions of southern Italy, killing nearly 2,500.
57. 1981-05-08 - The Winter Park sinkhole. A huge sinkhole opened in Winter Park, Florida, in 1981, swallowing a house, cars and part of a swimming pool.
58. 1981 - The Winter Park sinkhole. A huge sinkhole opened in Winter Park, Florida, in 1980, swallowing a house, cars and part of a pool.
59. 1983-02-16 - The Ash Wednesday bushfires. Firestorms swept South Australia and Victoria on Ash Wednesday 1983, killing 75.
60. 1984-07-12 - The 1984 Munich hailstorm. A supercell dropped huge hail on Munich in 1984, one of the costliest hailstorms in European history.
61. 1985-09-19 - The 1985 Mexico City earthquake. An 8.0 quake off the Pacific coast devastated Mexico City hundreds of kilometres away, collapsing buildings and killing around 10,000.
62. 1986-10-10 - The 1986 San Salvador earthquake. An earthquake struck the capital of El Salvador in 1986, killing over 1,500.
63. 1987-10-16 - The Great Storm of 1987. A freak extratropical storm battered southern England in 1987, felling 15 million trees overnight.
64. 1988-06-01 - The 1988 North American drought. A severe drought and heatwave withered the U.S. farm belt in 1988 and fed the Yellowstone fires.
65. 1988-06-01 - The 1988 Yellowstone fires. Fires burned a third of Yellowstone National Park, forcing a rethink of natural fire management.
66. 1988-09-14 - Hurricane Gilbert. One of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record, Gilbert devastated Jamaica and the Yucatán.
67. 1988-12-07 - The 1988 Armenian earthquake. The Spitak earthquake devastated northern Armenia in the Soviet Union, killing at least 25,000.
68. 1989-09-21 - Hurricane Hugo. Hugo devastated the Caribbean and the Carolinas, one of the costliest hurricanes of its era.
69. 1989-10-17 - The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. A quake struck the San Francisco Bay Area during a live World Series broadcast, collapsing a freeway and killing 63.
70. 1991-02-01 - The Kuwaiti oil fires. Retreating forces set fire to over 600 Kuwaiti oil wells, blackening the sky for months in an environmental catastrophe.
71. 1991-04-26 - The 1991 Andover tornado. An F5 tornado near Andover, Kansas, was one of the first violent tornadoes captured on home video.
72. 1991-11-02 - Cyclone Gay. The 1991 Bay of Bengal cyclone drove a massive surge into Bangladesh, killing around 138,000.
73. 1992-07-02 - The collapse of the cod. Centuries of overfishing crashed the northern cod off Newfoundland in 1992, ending a way of life overnight.
74. 1992-08-24 - Hurricane Andrew. A Category 5 hurricane flattened parts of South Florida, causing $27 billion in damage and rewriting how America builds for storms.
75. 1992-10-12 - The 1992 Cairo earthquake. A moderate but shallow earthquake struck Cairo in 1992, killing over 500 in the crowded city.
76. 1993 - The 1930 Midi floods. Catastrophic floods struck the Tarn and Garonne valleys of southern France in 1930, killing hundreds.
77. 1993 - The 1993 Great Flood. Months of flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers submerged much of the American Midwest.
78. 1993-09-30 - The 1993 Latur earthquake. An earthquake struck a quiet, quake-free part of India in 1993, killing nearly 10,000 in their sleep.
79. 1994-01-17 - The 1994 Northridge earthquake. A quake beneath Los Angeles killed 57 and caused over $20 billion in damage.
80. 1995-01-16 - The 1995 Súðavík avalanche. An avalanche destroyed part of the Icelandic village of Súðavík in 1995, killing 14.
81. 1995-05-05 - The Mayfest hailstorm. A hailstorm struck an outdoor festival in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1995, injuring over 100 people caught in the open.
82. 1997-05-27 - The 1997 Jarrell tornado. A slow, violent F5 tornado obliterated the town of Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 in one of the most intense tornadoes ever documented.
83. 1998-01-05 - The 1998 North American ice storm. A massive ice storm coated Quebec and the northeastern U.S. in ice, collapsing power grids and leaving millions in the cold.
84. 1998-05-05 - The 1998 Sarno mudslides. Debris flows buried the towns of Sarno and Quindici in southern Italy in 1998, killing over 150.
85. 1998-10-29 - Hurricane Mitch. Mitch stalled over Central America, dropping catastrophic rain that killed over 11,000 in Honduras and Nicaragua.
86. 1999-01-25 - The 1999 Armenia earthquake. An earthquake devastated Colombia's coffee-growing region around the city of Armenia in 1999.
87. 1999-02-09 - The 1999 Montroc avalanche. An avalanche destroyed chalets near Chamonix, France, killing 12 and prompting a landmark negligence trial.
88. 1999-02-24 - The Galtür airlift. After the 1999 Galtür avalanche, the largest peacetime helicopter airlift in Austrian history evacuated the valley.
89. 1999-04-14 - The 1999 Sydney hailstorm. A freak hailstorm battered Sydney with giant hail in 1999, Australia's costliest natural disaster at the time.
90. 1999-08-17 - The 1999 İzmit earthquake. A magnitude 7.6 quake struck northwestern Turkey, killing over 17,000.
91. 1999-09-21 - The 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. The 921 earthquake devastated central Taiwan in 1999, killing over 2,400 and collapsing a school onto its foundations.
92. 1999-10-29 - The 1999 Odisha cyclone. The strongest tropical cyclone ever in the North Indian Ocean struck Odisha, India, killing about 10,000.
93. 1999-11-12 - The 1999 Düzce earthquake. A second great earthquake struck Düzce, Turkey, months after the İzmit disaster of 1999.
94. 1999-12-26 - The storms Lothar and Martin. Two ferocious windstorms tore across France and central Europe after Christmas 1999, killing 140.
95. 2000-03-31 - The 2000 Mount Usu eruption. An eruption of Hokkaido's Mount Usu was predicted in time to evacuate thousands, a rare forecasting success.
96. 2001-01-26 - The 2001 Gujarat earthquake. A quake struck western India on Republic Day, killing around 20,000.
97. 2002-11-03 - The 2002 Reventador eruption. Ecuador's Reventador volcano erupted violently in 2002, dusting Quito in ash.
98. 2003-08-16 - The 2003 Okanagan Mountain fire. A wildfire forced the evacuation of Kelowna, British Columbia, destroying hundreds of homes.
99. 2003-10-25 - The 2003 Cedar Fire. California's Cedar Fire near San Diego was the state's largest wildfire at the time.
100. 2004 - The 2004 South Asia floods. Monsoon floods across Bangladesh, India and Nepal submerged vast regions and displaced millions.
101. 2004-08-16 - The Boscastle flash flood. A flash flood tore through the Cornish village of Boscastle in England in 2004, swept cars into the harbour.
102. 2004-09-16 - Hurricane Jeanne. Jeanne's rains triggered catastrophic floods and mudslides in Haiti, killing over 3,000.
103. 2004-12-26 - The tsunami reaches Africa. The 2004 tsunami crossed the entire Indian Ocean, killing people in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania hours later.
104. 2005 - The 2005 Caribbean bleaching. A marine heatwave in 2005 caused catastrophic coral bleaching across the Caribbean, killing much of the region's reef.
105. 2005 - The 2005 Amazon drought. A once-in-a-century drought dried Amazon tributaries in 2005, a warning of the rainforest's fragility.
106. 2005-03-28 - The 2005 Nias earthquake. A great aftershock of the 2004 megaquake struck Nias island off Sumatra, killing over 1,300.
107. 2005-07-26 - The 2005 Mumbai floods. Nearly a metre of rain fell on Mumbai in a day in 2005, paralysing the megacity.
108. 2005-08-29 - The flooding of New Orleans. When Katrina's surge broke the levees, 80% of New Orleans flooded, trapping thousands on rooftops.
109. 2005-08-29 - Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. Katrina's winds and surge hammered the Mississippi and Louisiana coast before the levees failed.
110. 2005-08-29 - Hurricane Katrina. Katrina's storm surge broke the levees of New Orleans, drowning 80% of the city and killing over 1,800 in a catastrophe of both nature and failed response.
111. 2005-09-24 - Hurricane Rita. Weeks after Katrina, Rita struck the Texas-Louisiana border and triggered a chaotic mass evacuation.
112. 2005-10-08 - The Hattian Bala landslide. The 2005 Kashmir quake triggered a huge landslide at Hattian Bala that dammed rivers and buried a village.
113. 2005-10-08 - The 2005 Kashmir earthquake. A magnitude 7.6 quake devastated Pakistani-administered Kashmir, killing over 87,000 in the Himalayan foothills.
114. 2005-10-19 - Hurricane Wilma. The most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded by pressure, Wilma struck the Yucatán and Florida.
115. 2006-01-11 - The Alaska volcano eruptions. Alaska's Aleutian arc, Augustine, Redoubt, Bogoslof, erupts often, threatening aviation across the North Pacific.
116. 2006-02-17 - The 2006 Southern Leyte landslide. A rain-soaked mountainside buried the village of Guinsaugon in the Philippines, killing over 1,100.
117. 2006-05-27 - The 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake. An earthquake struck near Yogyakarta, Indonesia, killing nearly 6,000.
118. 2006-07-17 - The 2006 Java tsunami. A tsunami struck the southern coast of Java, Indonesia, catching beachgoers by surprise.
119. 2006-11-30 - Typhoon Durian (Reming). Typhoon Durian's rains triggered deadly volcanic mudflows off Mayon in the Philippines in 2006.
120. 2007 - The Syrian drought. A years-long drought from 2006 drove farmers off the land in Syria, a stress that fed the later uprising.
121. 2007 - Australian red dust storms. Enormous red dust storms periodically blow off Australia's dry interior and engulf coastal cities.
122. 2007-01-18 - Windstorm Kyrill. 2007 with hurricane-force gusts, shutting down whole countries.
123. 2007-02-01 - The Salang Pass avalanches. Afghanistan's Salang Pass tunnel and road, a Soviet-built lifeline, is repeatedly buried by avalanches.
124. 2007-02-23 - The 2007 Guatemala City sinkhole. A vast sinkhole opened in Guatemala City, swallowing homes and killing several people.
125. 2007-04-02 - The 2007 Solomon Islands tsunami. An earthquake sent a tsunami into the Solomon Islands, lifting reefs out of the sea.
126. 2007-05-04 - The Greensburg tornado. An EF5 tornado destroyed 95% of Greensburg, Kansas, which rebuilt itself as a green town.
127. 2007-06-01 - The 2007 UK floods. Summer downpours flooded large parts of England in 2007, submerging Gloucestershire and Yorkshire.
128. 2007-06-06 - Cyclone Gonu. 2007.
129. 2007-07-28 - The Berezniki sinkholes. Giant sinkholes over a collapsing potash mine have been swallowing parts of the Russian city of Berezniki for years.
130. 2007-08-24 - The 2007 Greek wildfires. Wildfires swept the Peloponnese in Greece's deadliest fire season, killing over 80.
131. 2007-11-15 - Cyclone Sidr. 2007, killing thousands despite a huge evacuation.
132. 2008 - The amphibian chytrid pandemic. A deadly fungus has driven dozens of frog species to extinction across the Americas and Australia.
133. 2008 - The 2008 Afghanistan blizzard. An extreme cold wave and blizzards killed over 900 people and hundreds of thousands of livestock across Afghanistan.
134. 2008-01-10 - The 1915 Avezzano earthquake. An earthquake destroyed Avezzano in central Italy, killing over 30,000.
135. 2008-01-25 - The 2008 Chinese winter storms. Ice storms paralysed southern and central China during the Lunar New Year travel rush of 2008.
136. 2008-02-05 - The 2008 Super Tuesday outbreak. A tornado outbreak struck the U.S. South on the 2008 primary-election 'Super Tuesday', killing 57.
137. 2008-05-02 - Cyclone Nargis. 's Irrawaddy Delta, killing an estimated 138,000 as the ruling junta blocked international aid.
138. 2008-05-02 - The 2008 Chaitén eruption. A dormant Chilean volcano erupted without warning in 2008, forcing the evacuation of a whole town.
139. 2008-05-07 - The Daisetta sinkhole. A sinkhole rapidly grew to 275 metres wide in Daisetta, Texas, swallowing vehicles and oil tanks over a salt dome.
140. 2008-05-12 - The 2008 Sichuan earthquake. A magnitude 7.9 quake struck Sichuan, China, killing nearly 90,000 and collapsing schools across the province.
141. 2008-05-25 - The Parkersburg tornado. An EF5 tornado destroyed Parkersburg, Iowa, in 2008.
142. 2008-08-03 - The 2008 Hautmont tornado. A rare, violent tornado struck the northern French town of Hautmont in 2008.
143. 2008-08-18 - Tropical Storm Fay. 2008.
144. 2008-09-13 - Hurricane Ike. 's surge devastated Galveston and the Texas coast in 2008.
145. 2009 - Avalanches in the British hills. Even Scotland's mountains kill climbers in avalanches most winters, a little-known hazard of the UK.
146. 2009 - The giant Nomura's jellyfish. Blooms of car-sized Nomura's jellyfish periodically clog nets and capsize boats in the Sea of Japan.
147. 2009-02-07 - Australia's Black Saturday. Bushfires on a day of catastrophic heat killed 173 people in Victoria, Australia, the country's deadliest bushfire disaster.
148. 2009-04-06 - The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake. A quake struck the medieval Italian city of L'Aquila, killing 309 and later leading to a controversial scientists' trial.
149. 2009-08-08 - Typhoon Morakot. 2009, burying the village of Xiaolin in a landslide.
150. 2009-09-23 - The 2009 Australian dust storm. A vast red dust storm blew across eastern Australia and turned Sydney's sky a Martian red.
151. 2009-09-26 - Typhoon Ketsana floods Manila. Typhoon Ketsana dumped a month's rain on Manila in hours in 2009, submerging the Philippine capital.
152. 2009-09-29 - The 2009 Samoa tsunami. An earthquake sent tsunami waves into Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, killing over 180.
153. 2009-09-30 - The 2009 Padang earthquake. An earthquake struck Padang on Sumatra in 2009, collapsing buildings and killing over 1,100.
154. 2009-11-19 - The 2009 Cumbria floods. Record rainfall flooded Cockermouth and Workington in England's Lake District.
155. 2010 - The emerald ash borer invasion. An invasive beetle from Asia has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees across North America since the 2000s.
156. 2010 - The mountain pine beetle epidemic. A beetle outbreak, fuelled by warming winters, has killed vast tracts of pine forest across western North America.
157. 2010 - Mongolia's dzud disasters. The 'dzud', a summer drought followed by a brutal winter, periodically kills millions of livestock and threatens nomadic herders.
158. 2010 - The Sarisariñama sinkholes. Venezuela's remote tepui plateaus hold vast, near-perfect natural sinkholes with unique ecosystems on their floors.
159. 2010-01-05 - The Attabad landslide-avalanche. A massive landslide dammed Pakistan's Hunza River in 2010, forming a lake that drowned villages upstream.
160. 2010-01-12 - The 2010 Haiti earthquake. A magnitude 7.0 quake struck near Port-au-Prince, killing an estimated 100,000-300,000 people and devastating the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
161. 2010-01-12 - The 2010 Haiti earthquake. An earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, killing well over 100,000 in one of the deadliest disasters of the century.
162. 2010-02-05 - The 2010 'Snowmageddon'. Back-to-back blizzards buried the U.S. Mid-Atlantic in record snow in February 2010.
163. 2010-02-27 - The 2010 Chile earthquake. A magnitude 8.8 quake and tsunami struck central Chile, killing over 500.
164. 2010-02-27 - The 2010 Chile tsunami. The great 2010 Chile earthquake sent a tsunami that devastated coastal towns like Constitución and Dichato.
165. 2010-03-01 - The 2010 Bududa landslide. Landslides buried villages on the slopes of Mount Elgon in eastern Uganda in 2010.
166. 2010-03-19 - Asian dust storms. Vast spring dust storms from the Gobi routinely sweep across China, Korea and Japan, choking cities in yellow dust.
167. 2010-03-20 - The Tri-State Tornado. The deadliest tornado in U.S. history tore 219 miles across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, killing 695.
168. 2010-04-14 - The 2010 Yushu earthquake. A quake struck the Tibetan plateau of Qinghai, China, killing around 2,700.
169. 2010-04-14 - Eyjafjallajökull grounds Europe. An eruption under an Icelandic glacier sent ash across Europe, grounding air travel for a week, modern civilisation halted by a volcano.
170. 2010-04-25 - Giant hailstorms. Hailstones the size of grapefruit have smashed through roofs and windshields, some of the largest ever recorded fell on the U.S. Plains.
171. 2010-05-01 - The 2010 South Asia heat. A brutal pre-monsoon heatwave pushed temperatures above 48°C across India and Pakistan.
172. 2010-05-01 - The 2010 Nashville flood. Record rain flooded Nashville, Tennessee, submerging the Grand Ole Opry and downtown.
173. 2010-05-30 - The 2010 Guatemala City sinkhole. A near-perfect circular sinkhole 20 metres wide and 60 metres deep swallowed a three-storey building in Guatemala City.
174. 2010-06-08 - The 1984 Barneveld tornado. A nighttime F5 tornado nearly wiped the Wisconsin village of Barneveld off the map in 1984.
175. 2010-06-29 - The 1783 Laki eruption. Iceland's Laki fissure erupted for months, poisoning livestock and crops and causing a famine that killed a fifth of Iceland's people.
176. 2010 - The 2010 Russian heatwave & fires. An unprecedented heatwave set Russia's peatlands ablaze, smothering Moscow in smoke and killing an estimated 55,000.
177. 2010-07-23 - The record Vivian, South Dakota hailstone. The largest hailstone ever recovered in the U.S. 20 cm across, fell at Vivian, South Dakota, in 2010.
178. 2010-08-01 - The 2010 Pakistan floods. Monsoon floods put a fifth of Pakistan underwater, affecting 20 million people.
179. 2010-08-08 - The 2010 Zhouqu mudslide. A massive mudslide buried part of Zhouqu county in Gansu, China, killing over 1,700.
180. 2010-08-08 - The 2010 Zhouqu mudslide. Mudslides swept through Zhouqu in China's Gansu province, killing over 1,700.
181. 2010-10-26 - The 2010 Merapi eruption. Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted violently, killing over 350 including its guardian 'gatekeeper'.
182. 2010-12-01 - The 2010 British big freeze. The coldest December in a century froze Britain, closing airports and stranding travellers.
183. 2011 - Iceland's waiting volcanoes. Iceland sits on a rift of restless volcanoes, Katla, Grímsvötn, Bárðarbunga, whose eruptions can ground world aviation.
184. 2011-01-10 - The 2011 Queensland floods. An 'inland tsunami' of floodwater tore through Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, then swamped Brisbane.
185. 2011-01-11 - Blood rain and freak precipitation. History records rains of blood, fish and frogs, real phenomena caused by dust, waterspouts and updrafts lofting matter into the clouds.
186. 2011-01-11 - The 2011 Rio de Janeiro floods. Floods and mudslides in the mountains above Rio killed over 900, Brazil's worst weather disaster to that point.
187. 2011-02-22 - The 2011 Christchurch earthquake. A shallow quake devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185 and destroying much of the city centre.
188. 2011-02-27 - The 2011 La Paz landslide. A massive slow-moving landslide destroyed neighbourhoods of La Paz, Bolivia.
189. 2011-03-10 - The 869 Jōgan tsunami. A great tsunami flooded the Sendai plain in 869, a warning from history ignored before 2011.
190. 2011-03-11 - The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. The magnitude 9.0 quake off Japan, the most powerful in the country's history, shifted the Earth on its axis.
191. 2011-03-11 - The 2011 Tōhoku tsunami. A magnitude 9.0 quake off Japan sent a wall of water over the coast, killing nearly 20,000 and triggering the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.
192. 2011-04-27 - The 2011 Hackleburg tornado. The deadliest tornado of the 2011 Super Outbreak, an EF5, tore across northern Alabama, killing 72.
193. 2011-04-27 - The Tuscaloosa–Birmingham tornado. A massive tornado tore through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Alabama, filmed live on television.
194. 2011-04-27 - The 2011 Super Outbreak. The largest tornado outbreak in history spawned 360 tornadoes across the U.S. South in three days, killing over 320.
195. 2011-05-22 - The 2011 Joplin tornado. An EF5 tornado tore directly through Joplin, Missouri, killing 158, the deadliest single U.S. tornado since modern records began.
196. 2011-06-02 - The New Madrid earthquakes. A series of massive earthquakes rocked the central U.S. in 1811-12, reportedly making the Mississippi run backwards.
197. 2011-06-04 - The 2011 Puyehue eruption. Chile's Puyehue-Cordón Caulle erupted in 2011, grounding flights across the southern hemisphere.
198. 2011-06-12 - The 2011 Nabro eruption. A little-known volcano on the Eritrea–Ethiopia border erupted in 2011, one of the largest of the decade.
199. 2011-07-05 - The 2011 Phoenix haboob. A mile-high wall of dust engulfed Phoenix, Arizona, one of the most dramatic haboobs ever filmed.
200. 2011-07-05 - The 2011 Phoenix haboob. A towering wall of dust, a haboob, over 1.5 km high rolled over Phoenix, Arizona, swallowing the city in minutes.
201. 2011-07-11 - The 1984 Ontake landslide. The 1984 Nagano earthquake triggered a huge debris avalanche off Mount Ontake in Japan.
202. 2011-07-20 - The 2011 Horn of Africa famine. The worst drought in 60 years caused famine across Somalia, killing an estimated 260,000.
203. 2011-07-27 - The 2011 Seoul floods. Record rain triggered floods and landslides across Seoul, South Korea, in 2011.
204. 2011-08-01 - The 2011 Texas drought. The worst one-year drought in Texas history withered crops and fuelled record wildfires.
205. 2011-10-01 - The 2011 Thailand floods. Months of monsoon flooding inundated much of Thailand including Bangkok, killing over 800 and disrupting global electronics supply chains.
206. 2011-11-10 - The American chestnut blight. A fungus wiped out billions of American chestnut trees in the early 20th century, remaking eastern forests.
207. 2012 - California's 2012-16 drought. A severe multi-year drought forced California's first-ever mandatory statewide water restrictions.
208. 2012 - The reef and the starfish. Crown-of-thorns starfish, fed by farm runoff, have chewed through vast stretches of Pacific reef.
209. 2012 - White-nose syndrome in bats. A cold-loving fungus has killed millions of hibernating bats across North America since 2006.
210. 2012 - Collapsing salt and gypsum karst. Where water dissolves salt, gypsum or limestone underground, the surface can suddenly give way, a global hazard from Iraq to the Urals.
211. 2012-01-27 - The 2012 European cold wave. An extreme cold wave killed over 650 across Europe and froze the Danube and Venice's canals.
212. 2012-04-12 - The Great Blizzard of 1899. A cold wave and blizzard in February 1899 brought snow to every U.S. state, even Florida.
213. 2012-04-21 - The 1936 Tupelo–Gainesville outbreak. A tornado outbreak devastated Tupelo, Mississippi (Elvis's hometown) and Gainesville, Georgia.
214. 2012-04-21 - The 1965 Palm Sunday outbreak. An outbreak of 47 tornadoes struck the U.S. Midwest, killing over 250 and spurring modern warning systems.
215. 2012-04-25 - The 1908 Tunguska event. A meteor air-burst flattened 2,000 square km of Siberian forest, the largest impact event in recorded history, though no crater was found.
216. 2012-05-20 - The 2012 Emilia earthquakes. Quakes struck the Po Valley of northern Italy, killing 27 and toppling historic towers.
217. 2012-06-29 - The 2012 Mid-Atlantic derecho. A derecho, a vast, fast wall of straight-line wind, raced from the Midwest to the Atlantic, leaving millions without power.
218. 2012-08-03 - The Bayou Corne sinkhole. A collapsing salt cavern created a growing, bubbling sinkhole in the Louisiana bayou that forced a community to evacuate for good.
219. 2012-08-03 - The Bayou Corne sinkhole. A failed salt cavern opened a bubbling, tree-swallowing sinkhole in Louisiana that forced a town's evacuation for years.
220. 2012-08-10 - The drought before the Revolution. Drought, hail and a brutal winter wrecked France's harvest in 1788, helping ignite the Revolution the next year.
221. 2012-09-23 - The 1855 Edo earthquake. An earthquake struck Edo (Tokyo), spawning the famous 'namazu-e' catfish woodblock prints of Japanese folklore.
222. 2012-10-29 - Hurricane Sandy. Superstorm Sandy flooded New York City's subways and streets and battered the U.S. East Coast, a $70 billion warning about coastal cities.
223. 2012-12-04 - Typhoon Bopha. 2012.
224. 2013 - Jellyfish blooms. Massive jellyfish blooms have clogged power-plant intakes and fishing nets worldwide, a growing marine disruption.
225. 2013 - China's factory-floor sinkholes. Rapid groundwater pumping and construction have opened deadly sinkholes beneath Chinese cities and workshops.
226. 2013 - The Sahara's dust engine. The Bodélé Depression in Chad is the single largest source of dust on Earth, feeding storms worldwide.
227. 2013 - The Madagascar locust plague. A locust plague swept Madagascar in 2013, threatening the food of half the island's people.
228. 2013-02-28 - The Seffner sinkhole. A sinkhole opened beneath a house in Seffner, Florida, swallowing a sleeping man in one of the state's notorious sinkhole collapses.
229. 2013-03-22 - The 2013 Brahmanbaria tornado. A tornado struck the Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh, killing dozens.
230. 2013-04-20 - The 2013 Lushan earthquake. An earthquake struck Sichuan, China, near the 2008 disaster zone, killing about 200.
231. 2013-05-20 - The 2013 Moore tornado. An EF5 tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, again, destroying two schools and killing 24.
232. 2013-05-31 - The 2013 El Reno tornado. The widest tornado ever recorded, 4.2 km across, struck near El Reno, Oklahoma, killing storm chasers for the first time.
233. 2013-05-31 - The El Reno tornado. The widest tornado ever recorded, 2.6 miles across, struck near El Reno, Oklahoma, killing veteran storm chasers.
234. 2013-06-01 - Sea star wasting disease. From 2013 a mysterious wasting disease dissolved billions of starfish along North America's Pacific coast.
235. 2013-06-01 - Sea star wasting disease. A mysterious wasting disease dissolved billions of starfish along the Pacific coast, collapsing kelp forests.
236. 2013-06-05 - The 2002 Central European floods. Record floods on the Elbe and Danube inundated Prague, Dresden and much of Central Europe in 2002.
237. 2013-06-16 - The 2013 North India floods. Cloudbursts and flash floods devastated the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, killing over 5,000 pilgrims and locals.
238. 2013 - The Andean cold snaps. Sudden 'friaje' cold snaps freeze the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia, killing livestock and children.
239. 2013-07-25 - Appalachian mine subsidence. A century of underground coal mining leaves Appalachian towns sinking into hidden voids.
240. 2013-08-12 - The Disney resort sinkhole. A sinkhole swallowed part of a resort near Disney World in Florida in 2013, filmed as it collapsed.
241. 2013-08-22 - The Newfoundland hurricane of 1775. A hurricane killed thousands of fishermen off Newfoundland in 1775, one of the deadliest in Canadian history.
242. 2013-08-22 - The Siberian cold poles. In Oymyakon and Verkhoyansk, Siberia, winter temperatures plunge below -60°C, the coldest inhabited places on Earth.
243. 2013-09-11 - The 2013 Colorado floods. A week of rain caused catastrophic flooding along Colorado's Front Range around Boulder.
244. 2013-10-09 - The 1998 Yangtze floods. Months of flooding along the Yangtze River affected 240 million people in China and killed over 3,000.
245. 2013-10-12 - Cyclone Phailin. A huge cyclone struck India's east coast, but a mass evacuation of a million people kept deaths low.
246. 2013-10-15 - The 2013 Bohol earthquake. A quake struck the central Philippines, destroying centuries-old churches and killing over 220.
247. 2013-11-08 - Typhoon Haiyan. One of the strongest storms ever to make landfall, Haiyan devastated the central Philippines with a massive storm surge, killing over 6,000.
248. 2013-11-08 - Surviving Typhoon Haiyan. Survivors filmed the storm surge tearing through Tacloban as they clung to rafters, some of the most harrowing disaster video ever.
249. 2013-11-18 - The 2013 Sardinia floods. Cyclone Cleopatra caused deadly flash floods across the Italian island of Sardinia in 2013.
250. 2014 - 'The Blob' marine heatwave. A vast patch of abnormally warm Pacific water, 'the Blob', disrupted the food web from Alaska to California from 2013.
251. 2014 - The cane toad invasion. Introduced to Australia in 1935, cane toads spread as a poisonous plague, killing native predators.
252. 2014-01-06 - The 2014 polar vortex. A dip in the polar vortex plunged the U.S. into record-breaking cold in January 2014.
253. 2014-01-28 - 'Snowmageddon' in Atlanta. A few centimetres of snow and ice paralysed Atlanta in 2014, stranding drivers on highways overnight.
254. 2014-02-12 - The Corvette Museum sinkhole. A sinkhole opened inside the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky, swallowing eight cars on camera.
255. 2014-03-22 - The 2014 Oso mudslide. A massive hillside collapse buried a rural neighbourhood near Oso, Washington, killing 43, the deadliest landslide in U.S. history.
256. 2014-03-25 - The 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami. A landslide into Lituya Bay, Alaska, generated the highest wave ever recorded, 524 metres, stripping the shoreline bare.
257. 2014-04-13 - The 893 Ardabil earthquake. A catastrophic earthquake struck Ardabil in northwestern Persia in 893, one of history's deadliest.
258. 2014-04-18 - The 2014 Everest avalanche. An ice avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall killed 16 Sherpas, the deadliest single day on Everest until the next year.
259. 2014-04-27 - The 2014 Vilonia tornado. A violent tornado struck Vilonia and Mayflower, Arkansas, in 2014.
260. 2014-05-02 - The Badakhshan landslide. A landslide buried much of the village of Aab Barik in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province in 2014.
261. 2014-05-13 - The 2014 Balkan floods. Record rain flooded Bosnia and Serbia, triggering landslides that disturbed old war minefields.
262. 2014 - The 1997-98 super El Niño. One of the strongest El Niños on record reshaped weather worldwide and bleached reefs across the planet.
263. 2014-06-16 - The Pilger twin tornadoes. Two violent tornadoes touched down side by side near Pilger, Nebraska, in 2014, a rare and dramatic sight.
264. 2014 - The Siberian methane craters. Vast craters have blown open in the Siberian permafrost, apparently from methane bursting out of thawing ground.
265. 2014-08-20 - The 2014 Hiroshima landslides. Torrential rain triggered dozens of debris flows across the hills above Hiroshima, Japan, killing 74.
266. 2014-09-20 - The 1982-83 El Niño. One of the strongest El Niños on record caused droughts, floods and the first major recorded coral bleaching worldwide.
267. 2014-09-27 - The Mount Ontake eruption. A sudden steam eruption of Japan's Mount Ontake killed 63 hikers on a clear autumn day, filmed as it happened.
268. 2014-10-25 - The Sahel drought & Ethiopian famine. Prolonged drought across the Sahel caused the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine that killed hundreds of thousands and inspired Live Aid.
269. 2014-11-25 - The Ourika Valley flood. A flash flood tore through Morocco's Ourika Valley in 1995, sweeping away tourists and villages.
270. 2014-12-15 - The Ilopango eruption. A vast eruption in what is now El Salvador around 431 AD may have darkened skies worldwide and disrupted the Maya.
271. 2015 - The São Paulo water crisis. A historic drought nearly emptied the reservoirs of São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, in 2014-15.
272. 2015 - The red imported fire ant. Invasive fire ants have spread across the U.S. South, Australia and China, delivering painful, sometimes deadly stings.
273. 2015 - The varroa mite and colony collapse
274. 2015 - The Solikamsk sinkhole. A flooded potash mine keeps opening a growing sinkhole beside the Russian city of Solikamsk.
275. 2015 - Marine die-offs and the warming sea. Warming oceans have driven mass die-offs of seabirds, sea lions, whales and fish along the Pacific coast.
276. 2015 - 'The Blob' marine heatwave. A vast patch of abnormally warm Pacific water, 'The Blob', disrupted marine life from 2013-16, starving seabirds and sea lions.
277. 2015 - The sea lamprey invasion. Invasive sea lampreys nearly wiped out the Great Lakes fishery, latching onto fish and draining them.
278. 2015 - Tidal bores. In a few rivers worldwide, the Qiantang in China, the Severn in Britain, the incoming tide forms a wall of water racing upstream.
279. 2015 - Ocean acidification. As the sea absorbs carbon dioxide it turns more acidic, dissolving the shells of oysters, corals and plankton.
280. 2015-01-03 - The 1955 Udall tornado. A nighttime tornado destroyed Udall, Kansas, in 1955, the deadliest in the state's history.
281. 2015-01-27 - Thundersnow. A rare phenomenon where a snowstorm produces lightning and thunder, most often in intense winter blizzards.
282. 2015-01-27 - The winter of 2015 in Boston. A relentless series of blizzards buried Boston under nearly nine feet of snow in the winter of 2015.
283. 2015-02-24 - The 2015 Panjshir avalanches. A series of avalanches struck Afghanistan's Panjshir valley in 2015, killing over 300.
284. 2015-03-13 - Cyclone Pam. One of the worst disasters in Pacific history, Cyclone Pam devastated the island nation of Vanuatu.
285. 2015-04-22 - The 2015 Calbuco eruption. Chile's Calbuco volcano erupted spectacularly after decades of dormancy, its ash lit by lightning.
286. 2015-04-25 - The 2015 Nepal earthquake. A 7.8 quake struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000, flattening centuries-old temples in Kathmandu and triggering a deadly avalanche on Everest.
287. 2015-04-25 - The 2015 Everest base camp avalanche. The Nepal earthquake triggered an avalanche that swept Everest Base Camp, killing at least 22.
288. 2015-05-01 - The 2015 India heatwave. A brutal heatwave across India and Pakistan killed over 3,500, melting roads in Delhi.
289. 2015-05-12 - The Nepal aftershock. A major aftershock struck Nepal weeks after the 2015 Gorkha quake, toppling already-weakened buildings.
290. 2015-05-18 - The Salgar landslide. A pre-dawn debris flow buried part of Salgar in Colombia's Antioquia in 2015, killing nearly 100.
291. 2015-06-01 - The 2015 North Korea drought. A severe drought hit North Korea in 2015, threatening its already fragile food supply.
292. 2015-08-27 - Tropical Storm Erika. 's rains devastated the Caribbean island of Dominica in 2015.
293. 2015-09-07 - The 2015 Middle East dust storm. A vast, unusual dust storm blanketed Syria, Lebanon and Israel in 2015 amid the region's conflict.
294. 2015-10-04 - The 1997 Indonesian fires. Vast peat and forest fires blanketed Southeast Asia in choking haze in 1997-98.
295. 2015-10-24 - The 1990 Plainfield tornado. A rare August F5 struck near Plainfield, Illinois, with no warning, killing 29.
296. 2015-11-01 - The 2015-16 southern Africa drought. An El Niño drought scorched southern Africa in 2015-16, leaving millions hungry from Zimbabwe to Malawi.
297. 2015-12-01 - The 2015 Chennai floods. The worst floods in a century submerged the Indian city of Chennai in 2015.
298. 2016 - The kelp forest collapse. Warming seas and exploding urchin populations have turned lush California kelp forests into barren 'urchin barrens'.
299. 2016 - Florida's sinkhole country. Central Florida's limestone bedrock dissolves to open sinkholes that regularly swallow roads, pools and houses.
300. 2016 - The Tasman Sea marine heatwave. A record marine heatwave off Tasmania in 2016 wiped out kelp forests and disrupted fisheries.

…and 573 more moments.

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