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 6100 BC–2026 on Loreline.
last updated 2026-07-16
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 Black Friday bushfires. Bushfires burned nearly two million hectares of Victoria, Australia, on 'Black Friday' 1939.
- — The 2023 Marapi eruption. A sudden eruption of Indonesia's Marapi volcano in 2023 killed climbers on its slopes.
- — The White Friday avalanches, 1916. During WWI, avalanches — some triggered deliberately — killed thousands of soldiers in the Italian Alps in a single week.
- — The 1927 Gulang earthquake. A powerful earthquake struck Gansu, China, killing an estimated 40,000.
- — The 2024 Noto earthquake. A magnitude 7.6 quake struck Japan's Noto Peninsula on New Year's Day, triggering a tsunami and fires.
- — The recurring locust threat. Warming and rain keep re-igniting desert-locust breeding, a standing threat to Africa and South Asia.
- — The 2024 Nordic deep freeze. Temperatures plunged below -40°C across Scandinavia in early 2024 in a historic cold snap.
- — The Grindavík eruptions. Eruptions on Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula from late 2023 forced the evacuation of the town of Grindavík.
- — The Matheson Fire. A firestorm swept through northern Ontario in 1916, killing over 200 in one of Canada's deadliest fires.
- — The 1974 Super Outbreak. In 18 hours, 148 tornadoes tore across 13 U.S. states, the most violent tornado outbreak ever recorded until 2011.
- — The 2024 Yunnan landslide. A landslide buried a village in China's Yunnan province in the depth of winter in 2024.
- — The 2024 Chile wildfires. Fast-moving fires swept into Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, killing over 130 in Chile's worst fire disaster.
- — The 1972 Iran blizzard. The deadliest blizzard in history buried villages in southern Iran under metres of snow, killing about 4,000.
- — The Smokehouse Creek Fire. The largest wildfire in Texas history burned across the Panhandle in early 2024.
- — The 1954 Yangtze floods. The 1954 Yangtze River floods were among the worst of the century, killing over 30,000 in China.
- — The 1910 Wellington avalanche. An avalanche swept two trains off the tracks near Wellington, Washington, killing 96 — the deadliest in U.S. history.
- — The 2024 global bleaching event. The fourth global mass-bleaching event, declared in 2024, hit reefs across every ocean at once.
- — The 2024 East Africa floods. Heavy rains and flooding devastated Kenya, Tanzania and the region, killing hundreds.
- — The 2024 Hualien earthquake. Taiwan's strongest quake in 25 years struck near Hualien, toppling buildings.
- — The 2024 Dubai floods. A year's rain fell in a day on the UAE, flooding Dubai's malls, roads and airport in a desert deluge.
- — The 2024 Ruang eruption. Indonesia's Ruang volcano erupted explosively in 2024, forcing mass evacuations and closing airports.
- — The 2024 Rio Grande do Sul floods. Catastrophic floods submerged Porto Alegre and much of southern Brazil in the state's worst disaster.
- — The 2024 South Asia heatwave. A prolonged, deadly heatwave gripped India and Pakistan, with Delhi hitting record temperatures.
- — The 2024 Mexico heat and water crisis. A brutal heatwave and drought dried reservoirs and killed howler monkeys across Mexico in 2024.
- — The 2024 double cicada emergence. Two periodical cicada broods — one 13-year, one 17-year — emerged together across the U.S. for the first time since 1803, in the trillions.
- — The 2024 tornado super-season. The spring of 2024 brought one of the most active severe-storm seasons on record across the U.S.
- — The 1970 Lubbock tornado. A tornado tore through downtown Lubbock, Texas, reshaping how scientists rate tornado damage.
- — The 1908 Messina tsunami. The great Messina earthquake sent a tsunami up to 12 metres high into the Strait, adding to the catastrophe.
- — The 2024 Kanlaon eruption. The Philippines' Kanlaon volcano erupted explosively in 2024, dusting towns and forcing evacuations.
- — The 1993 Galeras eruption. Colombia's Galeras erupted while scientists stood in its crater, killing nine of them.
- — The Indian famine of 1899-1900. One of the worst famines in Indian history followed the failure of the monsoon in 1899.
- — Hurricane Beryl. The earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record devastated the Windward Islands.
- — The 2024 Sicily and Sardinia drought. Sicily declared a state of emergency as reservoirs ran dry in the 2024 Mediterranean drought.
- — The 1951 Mount Lamington eruption. A pyroclastic eruption of Papua New Guinea's Mount Lamington killed about 3,000 in 1951.
- — Cyclones of the smaller islands. Small island nations from the Caribbean to the Pacific are repeatedly devastated by cyclones far beyond their means to recover.
- — The Jasper wildfire. A wildfire tore into the townsite of Jasper in the Canadian Rockies in 2024, destroying a third of the town.
- — The 2024 Wayanad landslides. Massive landslides buried villages in Wayanad, Kerala, India, in 2024, killing hundreds.
- — The Banqiao Dam failure. A typhoon caused China's Banqiao and other dams to fail in a cascade, killing an estimated 170,000.
- — Typhoon Yagi. 2024's most powerful storm, devastated Vietnam, the Philippines and southern China.
- — The 2024 Maiduguri flood. A dam collapse flooded Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria in 2024, displacing over a million people.
- — The 2024 Portugal wildfires. Wildfires swept northern and central Portugal in September 2024, killing several.
- — Hurricane Helene. Helene's rains caused catastrophic flooding far inland in the Appalachians, devastating western North Carolina.
- — Hurricane Milton. Milton rapidly intensified and struck Florida weeks after Helene, spawning a deadly tornado outbreak.
- — The 2024 Valencia floods. A year's rain fell in hours over eastern Spain, sending flash floods through Valencia that killed over 220 — Spain's deadliest flood in decades.
- — Diverting the lava of Etna. In 1992 engineers used explosives and barriers to divert Mount Etna's lava away from the town of Zafferana.
- — The 'December Giant' sinkhole. One of the largest natural sinkholes in the U.S. suddenly opened in Alabama in 1972.
- — The Catatumbo lightning. Where Venezuela's Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo, lightning storms rage up to 300 nights a year — the most electric place on Earth.
- — Cyclone Chido. devastated the French island of Mayotte, flattening shantytowns in the archipelago's worst disaster in decades.
- — The 1999 Vanuatu tsunami. An earthquake sent a tsunami into Pentecost Island in Vanuatu in 1999, a warning acted on by local knowledge.
- — Cyclone Tracy. destroyed the Australian city of Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974, flattening most of its buildings.
- — Lightning and the skyscraper. Tall towers like the Empire State Building are struck by lightning dozens of times a year, filmed in spectacular strikes.
- — The recurring Brazil deluges. Southern and southeastern Brazil now flood catastrophically almost every year as rainfall intensifies.
- — Australia's rabbit plagues. Rabbits, introduced in 1859, bred into a plague that stripped the Australian landscape before myxomatosis was released.
- — The Great Chilean earthquake. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded — magnitude 9.5 — struck Valdivia, Chile, and sent a tsunami across the Pacific.
- — The 2025 Los Angeles fires. Wind-driven fires destroyed thousands of homes across Pacific Palisades and Altadena in a Los Angeles firestorm.
- — The 2025 Los Angeles fires. Hurricane-force winds drove wildfires through Pacific Palisades and Altadena, destroying thousands of homes in one of California's costliest fire disasters.
- — The St. Francis Dam disaster. The collapse of the St. Francis Dam sent a flood down to the sea in California, killing over 400 and ending an engineer's career.
- — The 2025 Gulf Coast snowstorm. A rare, record snowstorm blanketed the U.S. Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida in January 2025.
- — Typhoon Tip. in 1979 remains the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded.
- — The 2025 Arctic outbreaks. Repeated Arctic outbreaks in early 2025 brought record cold and snow deep into the U.S.
- — The 1956 Amorgos tsunami. An earthquake in the Aegean sent a tsunami into the Greek Cyclades islands in 1956.
- — The 1966 flood of Florence. The Arno River flooded Florence, Italy, drowning the city and damaging priceless Renaissance art and books.
- — The 1925 Tri-State Tornado. The deadliest tornado in U.S. history tore 350 km across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana in over three hours, killing 695.
- — The 2025 South Korea wildfires. The worst wildfires in South Korea's history swept Uiseong and Andong, destroying an ancient temple.
- — The 2025 Myanmar earthquake. A powerful magnitude 7.7 quake struck central Myanmar near Mandalay, causing catastrophic damage.
- — The 1953 Waco tornado. A tornado tore through downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114 and helping launch modern tornado warnings.
- — The 1941 Huaraz outburst. A glacial lake outburst destroyed a third of Huaraz, Peru, in 1941, killing thousands.
- — The 1976 Friuli earthquake. A quake devastated the Friuli region of northeastern Italy, killing nearly 1,000.
- — The 1996 Tangail tornado. One of the deadliest tornadoes in history struck the Tangail district of Bangladesh, killing around 700.
- — The abandonment of Plymouth. Repeated eruptions of the Soufrière Hills buried Montserrat's capital Plymouth, a modern Pompeii.
- — The 1642 Kaifeng flood. Defenders deliberately breached the Yellow River's dikes to stop an army, drowning the city of Kaifeng.
- — The Antonine Plague. A pandemic, probably smallpox, swept the Roman Empire from 165 AD, killing millions.
…753 further moments continue the chronology here. Full text archive: /loreline-text/natural-disasters.md
- — The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The second-largest eruption of the 20th century, Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled global temperatures by half a degree for two years.
- — The 1911 Taal eruption. A violent eruption of the Philippines' Taal volcano in 1911 killed over 1,300.
- — The 2003 European heatwave. A record heatwave across Europe killed more than 70,000 people, most of them elderly.
- — The 1945 Makran earthquake. A megathrust earthquake off Pakistan's Makran coast triggered a tsunami across the Arabian Sea.
- — The 2025 Mediterranean fires. Extreme heat drove wildfires across Turkey, Greece and the Mediterranean again in 2025.
- — The 2025 European heatwaves. Extreme heat again gripped Europe in the summer of 2025, breaking records and fuelling wildfires.
- — Ball lightning — the freak phenomenon. For centuries, witnesses have reported glowing balls of light drifting through storms — a rare, still-unexplained atmospheric mystery.
- — The El Chichón eruption. A surprise eruption of Mexico's El Chichón killed some 2,000 and injected a cooling haze worldwide.
- — The 1990 Denver hailstorm. A hailstorm battered Denver in 1990, one of the costliest in U.S. history at the time.
- — The 1995 Chicago heatwave. A brutal heatwave killed over 700 people in Chicago in a week, mostly isolated elderly residents.
- — The 1920 Haiyuan landslides. China's Haiyuan earthquake triggered enormous loess landslides that buried villages, killing over 200,000.
- — The 1946 Nankaidō tsunami. A great earthquake off southern Japan sent a tsunami along the coast just after the war.
- — The 1957 Golden Angel earthquake. An earthquake toppled Mexico City's landmark Angel of Independence statue in 1957.
- — The Armero tragedy (Nevado del Ruiz). A small eruption of Nevado del Ruiz melted its glacier, sending a lahar that buried the town of Armero, Colombia, killing 23,000.
- — The 1946 Aleutian tsunami at Scotch Cap. The tsunami that destroyed Hawaii in 1946 first swept away the Scotch Cap lighthouse in Alaska.
- — Hurricane Iniki. devastated the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the strongest to hit Hawaii in recorded history.
- — Hurricane Floyd. caused catastrophic flooding across the U.S. East Coast and one of its largest evacuations.
- — The 1994 Rabaul eruption. Twin eruptions buried much of the town of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea in 1994.
- — The İzmit tsunami. The 1999 İzmit earthquake in Turkey generated a local tsunami in the Sea of Marmara.
- — Himalayan avalanches. Avalanches regularly sweep the high Himalayan valleys, burying villages, roads and mountaineers under snow and ice.
- — The Wichita Falls tornado. 'Terrible Tuesday' — a huge tornado tore through Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1979.
- — Hurricane David. devastated the Dominican Republic and Dominica before striking the U.S. in 1979.
- — The North Korean famine. Floods, drought and policy caused a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in North Korea in the 1990s.
- — The Woodward tornado. One of the deadliest tornadoes in Oklahoma history destroyed much of Woodward in 1947.
- — The Guin tornado. One of the Super Outbreak's most violent tornadoes obliterated the town of Guin, Alabama, in 1974.
- — The 1930 Merapi eruption. An eruption of Java's Merapi volcano in 1930 sent pyroclastic flows that killed some 1,300.
- — The 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami. A submarine landslide sent a tsunami into Papua New Guinea's coast, killing over 2,000.
- — The 1960 Valdivia earthquake. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5, struck southern Chile and sent tsunamis across the Pacific.
- — The Agrigento landslide. A slow ground collapse in Agrigento, Sicily, wrecked a whole modern neighbourhood built on unstable clay in 1966.
- — The 2000 Mozambique floods. Cyclone-driven floods submerged much of Mozambique; a woman famously gave birth in a tree awaiting rescue.
- — The 1987 Black Dragon Fire. One of the largest wildfires of the 20th century burned across China and the Soviet Union in 1987.
- — The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake. A quake levelled Ashgabat in Soviet Turkmenistan, killing an estimated 110,000.
- — The 1962 Val Parghera avalanche. Avalanches repeatedly threaten the road and rail links through the Swiss and Austrian Alps.
- — The 1956 cold wave in Europe. A brutal February cold wave froze rivers and killed thousands across Europe in 1956.
- — The Great Lakes Storm of 1913. A blizzard and hurricane-force winds sank a dozen ships on the Great Lakes in 1913, killing over 250 sailors.
- — The 1938 Yellow River flood. Chinese forces deliberately breached the Yellow River dikes to slow the Japanese advance, killing up to 800,000.
- — The 1999 Vargas tragedy. Torrential rain triggered flash floods and debris flows down the mountains onto Venezuela's coast, killing an estimated 10,000-30,000.
- — The 1957 Valencia flood. The Turia river flooded Valencia, Spain, in 1957, leading the city to divert the river around itself.
- — The 1935 Quetta earthquake. An earthquake destroyed Quetta in British India (now Pakistan), killing tens of thousands.
- — The 1953 Flint–Beecher tornado. The last single U.S. tornado to kill over 100 people struck Flint, Michigan.
- — The 1976 Moro Gulf earthquake. An earthquake and tsunami struck the Moro Gulf in the southern Philippines in 1976, killing thousands.
- — Black Sunday, 1935. On 'Black Sunday' a colossal wall of dust rolled across the American Plains, the worst black blizzard of the Dust Bowl.
- — The 1970 Huascarán avalanche. A quake shook loose a massive rock-and-ice avalanche from Peru's Mount Huascarán that buried the town of Yungay, killing over 20,000.
- — The Great Kantō firestorm. The 1923 quake's true horror was fire — firestorms and a fire tornado in Tokyo killed tens of thousands in minutes.
- — The 1932 Cuba hurricane. The deadliest hurricane in Cuban history drove a huge surge into Santa Cruz del Sur in 1932.
- — The 1993 Hokkaido earthquake. The Hokkaido earthquake and its tsunami devastated the island of Okushiri in Japan in 1993.
- — Hail as a weapon of ruin. Giant hail has smashed crops and killed people for centuries; deadly hailstorms still strike China and India.
- — The 1998 Bangladesh floods. Monsoon floods submerged two-thirds of Bangladesh for months, displacing 30 million people.
Full text archive: /loreline-text/natural-disasters.md
