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
Eras
- Earthquakes, The ground itself giving way, the great quakes that levelled cities and reshaped coastlines, from Lisbon 1755 to the megathrusts of the modern age.
- Tsunamis, Walls of water thrown across whole oceans by quakes and landslides, the 2004 Indian Ocean and 2011 Tōhoku catastrophes and the tsunamis of history.
- Hurricanes & Cyclones, The great tropical cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones, that drowned coasts and flattened cities across every warm ocean on Earth.
- Tornadoes, The most violent storms on the planet, the tornadoes and outbreaks that tore across Tornado Alley and beyond.
- Floods, When the water rose, river floods, flash floods, dam failures and monsoon deluges that swallowed whole regions.
- Wildfires, Firestorms out of control, the megafires and firestorms that consumed forests, towns and skies from Australia to California to the Amazon.
- Volcanoes, The Earth's furnace breaking through, the eruptions, from Vesuvius and Krakatoa to Pinatubo and beyond, that buried cities and darkened the sky.
- Landslides & Mudslides, The mountain coming down, landslides, mudflows, lahars and rockfalls that buried valleys and villages in minutes.
- Droughts & Heat, The slow disasters, the great droughts, dust bowls and killer heatwaves that starved land and people across continents.
- Blizzards, Ice & Cold, When the world froze, blizzards, ice storms, cold waves and the great winter storms that paralysed nations.
- Lightning & Freak Storms, The sky at its strangest, killer lightning, supercells, derechos, ball lightning and the freak storms that defied the forecast.
- Hail & Dust Storms, Ice and dust from above, giant hailstorms and the towering dust storms and haboobs that swallowed cities whole.
- Biological Plagues, When nature swarmed, the locust plagues, insect infestations and biological disasters that stripped the land bare.
- Ocean & Coral, The disasters of the sea, mass coral bleaching, red tides, algal blooms and the slow catastrophes unfolding underwater.
- Avalanches, The snow let loose, the avalanches that buried climbers, villages and armies beneath the mountains.
- Sinkholes & Ground Failure, The ground opening up, sinkholes, subsidence and the sudden collapses that swallowed roads, houses and people.
- - The Great Flood of Paris. The Seine burst its banks in 1910, submerging Paris streets for weeks in the city's worst modern flood.
- - The 1927 Great Mississippi Flood. The most destructive river flood in U.S. history inundated 70,000 square km and displaced 630,000.
- - 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.
- - The Tillamook Burn. A series of huge fires burned Oregon's Tillamook forest repeatedly from 1933, later famously replanted.
- - 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.
- - The 1938 New England hurricane. The 'Long Island Express' struck New England without warning, killing nearly 700.
- - The 1939 Chillán earthquake. An earthquake destroyed the Chilean city of Chillán in 1939, one of the country's deadliest.
- - 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.
- - The 1944 San Juan earthquake. An earthquake destroyed the Argentine city of San Juan in 1944, a disaster that helped launch Juan Perón.
- - The tsunami that changed Hawaii. The 1946 tsunami's surprise attack on Hilo led to the founding of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System.
- - The Kathleen Typhoon floods. Typhoon Kathleen's floods devastated the Kanto plain around Tokyo in 1947.
- - The 1947 Maine fires. Wildfires swept coastal Maine in the dry autumn of 1947, burning Bar Harbor and much of Acadia.
- - The 1947 New York blizzard. A surprise blizzard dumped record snow on New York City the day after Christmas 1947.
- - The 1951 Polesine flood. The Po River burst its banks in 1951, flooding the Polesine region of northern Italy and displacing 180,000.
- - The Lynmouth flood. A flash flood roared down the East and West Lyn rivers into the Devon village of Lynmouth, killing 34.
- - The 1954 Blons avalanches. Two avalanches struck the Austrian village of Blons on the same day, killing over 100.
- - Hurricane Carol. 1954, weeks before Hurricane Edna followed.
- - The North African locust invasions. Desert-locust swarms have swept North Africa and the Middle East for millennia, devouring everything green.
- - Hurricane Audrey. 's surge struck southwestern Louisiana with little warning in 1957, killing hundreds.
- - Typhoon Mireille. 20th century, in 1991.
- - Typhoon Vera (Isewan). Japan's deadliest typhoon struck Nagoya with a huge storm surge, killing over 5,000.
- - The 1960 Agadir earthquake. A moderate but shallow quake destroyed the Moroccan city of Agadir, killing a third of its population.
- - The 1960 Pacific tsunami. The Valdivia quake sent tsunamis across the Pacific that killed people in Chile, Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.
- - Hurricane Donna. 1960.
- - The 1962 Huascarán avalanche. An ice avalanche from Peru's Huascarán mountain buried the town of Ranrahirca, killing about 4,000.
- - Typhoon Wanda. 's Tolo Harbour in 1962.
- - 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.
- - Hurricane Flora. 1963, its rains killing thousands.
- - The birth of Surtsey. A new island, Surtsey, rose from the sea off Iceland in 1963 in a spectacular undersea eruption.
- - The 1964 Alaska earthquake. The magnitude 9.2 Good Friday earthquake, the strongest in North American history, devastated Anchorage.
- - Hurricane Betsy. 'Billion Dollar Betsy' flooded New Orleans in 1965, a grim rehearsal for Katrina forty years later.
- - The 1965 Taal eruption. A violent eruption of the Philippines' Taal volcano killed hundreds on its lake island.
- - The 1972 Hong Kong landslides. Torrential rain triggered deadly landslides across Hong Kong, including the Kotewall Road collapse.
- - The 1966 Belmond tornado. A tornado destroyed much of the Iowa town of Belmond in 1966.
- - The 1967 Lisbon floods. Flash floods killed hundreds around Lisbon, Portugal, in a single night in 1967, a long-hidden disaster.
- - The 1963 Skopje earthquake. A quake destroyed 80% of Skopje in Yugoslavia (now North Macedonia), killing over 1,000.
- - 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.
- - The 1971 Saint-Jean-Vianney landslide. A quick-clay collapse swallowed 40 homes in the Quebec village of Saint-Jean-Vianney, killing 31.
- - Dutch elm disease. A fungus spread by beetles killed most of the elm trees of Europe and North America in the 20th century.
- - The 1971 Red River flood. The Red River delta flood of 1971 is considered one of the worst of the 20th century in Vietnam.
- - The 1972 Managua earthquake. An earthquake destroyed the centre of Managua, Nicaragua, on Christmas Eve, killing over 10,000.
- - The Heimaey eruption. An eruption on Iceland's Heimaey island in 1973 buried a fishing town, and residents pumped seawater to stop the lava.
- - The Sahel droughts. Decades of drought across Africa's Sahel from the late 1960s brought famine to Ethiopia, Sudan and the Sahara's edge.
- - Hurricane Fifi. 's rains caused catastrophic flooding in Honduras, killing thousands.
- - The 1976 Guatemala earthquake. A quake along the Motagua Fault killed over 23,000 in Guatemala.
- - The Teton Dam failure. Idaho's brand-new Teton Dam collapsed as it filled, filmed as the flood swept downstream.
- - 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.
- - The Blizzard of 1977. A blizzard with hurricane-force winds buried Buffalo, New York, in one of the worst U.S. snow disasters.
- - The 1977 Caucete earthquake. An earthquake struck the San Juan region of Argentina in 1977, causing widespread liquefaction.
- - The Blizzard of 1978. A historic blizzard buried the U.S. Northeast, stranding thousands on highways around Boston.
…and 823 more moments.
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