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 2026-09-05

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. 1963-01-01 - 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. 1993-07-01 - 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. 2004-07-01 - 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. 2005-01-01 - 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. 2007-01-01 - The Syrian drought. A years-long drought from 2006 drove farmers off the land in Syria, a stress that fed the later uprising.
121. 2007-01-01 - 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. 2008-01-01 - The amphibian chytrid pandemic. A deadly fungus has driven dozens of frog species to extinction across the Americas and Australia.
133. 2008-01-01 - 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. 2009-01-01 - Avalanches in the British hills. Even Scotland's mountains kill climbers in avalanches most winters, a little-known hazard of the UK.
146. 2009-01-01 - 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. 2010-01-01 - 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. 2010-01-01 - The mountain pine beetle epidemic. A beetle outbreak, fuelled by warming winters, has killed vast tracts of pine forest across western North America.
157. 2010-01-01 - Mongolia's dzud disasters. The 'dzud', a summer drought followed by a brutal winter, periodically kills millions of livestock and threatens nomadic herders.
158. 2010-01-01 - 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. 2010-07-01 - 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.

…573 further moments continue the chronology here. Full text archive: /loreline-text/natural-disasters.md

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755. 2024-09-26 - Hurricane Helene. Helene's rains caused catastrophic flooding far inland in the Appalachians, devastating western North Carolina.
756. 2024-10-09 - Hurricane Milton. Milton rapidly intensified and struck Florida weeks after Helene, spawning a deadly tornado outbreak.
757. 2024-10-29 - 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.
758. 2024-10-31 - Diverting the lava of Etna. In 1992 engineers used explosives and barriers to divert Mount Etna's lava away from the town of Zafferana.
759. 2024-12-03 - The 'December Giant' sinkhole. One of the largest natural sinkholes in the U.S. suddenly opened in Alabama in 1972.
760. 2024-12-03 - 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.
761. 2024-12-14 - Cyclone Chido. 's worst disaster in decades.
762. 2024-12-18 - The 1999 Vanuatu tsunami. An earthquake sent a tsunami into Pentecost Island in Vanuatu in 1999, a warning acted on by local knowledge.
763. 2024-12-25 - Cyclone Tracy. 1974, flattening most of its buildings.
764. 2025-01-01 - Lightning and the skyscraper. Tall towers like the Empire State Building are struck by lightning dozens of times a year, filmed in spectacular strikes.
765. 2025-01-01 - The recurring Brazil deluges. Southern and southeastern Brazil now flood catastrophically almost every year as rainfall intensifies.
766. 2025-01-06 - Australia's rabbit plagues. Rabbits, introduced in 1859, bred into a plague that stripped the Australian landscape before myxomatosis was released.
767. 2025-01-07 - The Great Chilean earthquake. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5, struck Valdivia, Chile, and sent a tsunami across the Pacific.
768. 2025-01-07 - The 2025 Los Angeles fires. Wind-driven fires destroyed thousands of homes across Pacific Palisades and Altadena in a Los Angeles firestorm.
769. 2025-01-07 - 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.
770. 2025-01-15 - 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.
771. 2025-01-21 - The 2025 Gulf Coast snowstorm. A rare, record snowstorm blanketed the U.S. Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida in January 2025.
772. 2025-01-23 - Typhoon Tip. 1979 remains the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded.
773. 2025-02-01 - The 2025 Arctic outbreaks. Repeated Arctic outbreaks in early 2025 brought record cold and snow deep into the U.S.
774. 2025-02-08 - The 1867 Virgin Islands tsunami. An earthquake sent a tsunami through the Virgin Islands and the eastern Caribbean in 1867.
775. 2025-02-10 - The 1956 Amorgos tsunami. An earthquake in the Aegean sent a tsunami into the Greek Cyclades islands in 1956.
776. 2025-03-08 - The 1966 flood of Florence. The Arno River flooded Florence, Italy, drowning the city and damaging priceless Renaissance art and books.
777. 2025-03-18 - 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.
778. 2025-03-22 - The 2025 South Korea wildfires. The worst wildfires in South Korea's history swept Uiseong and Andong, destroying an ancient temple.
779. 2025-03-26 - The 1812 Caracas earthquake. An earthquake destroyed Caracas during Venezuela's war of independence, killing thousands.
780. 2025-03-28 - The 2025 Myanmar earthquake. A powerful magnitude 7.7 quake struck central Myanmar near Mandalay, causing catastrophic damage.
781. 2025-04-18 - The 1880 Marshfield tornado. A tornado destroyed Marshfield, Missouri, one of the deadliest of the 19th century.
782. 2025-04-23 - The 1953 Waco tornado. A tornado tore through downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114 and helping launch modern tornado warnings.
783. 2025-05-04 - The 1941 Huaraz outburst. A glacial lake outburst destroyed a third of Huaraz, Peru, in 1941, killing thousands.
784. 2025-05-06 - The 1976 Friuli earthquake. A quake devastated the Friuli region of northeastern Italy, killing nearly 1,000.
785. 2025-05-12 - The 1996 Tangail tornado. One of the deadliest tornadoes in history struck the Tangail district of Bangladesh, killing around 700.
786. 2025-05-29 - The 1896 St. Louis tornado. A tornado tore through St. Louis and East St. Louis, one of the deadliest and costliest in U.S. history.
787. 2025-05-30 - The burial of Plurs. A rockslide-avalanche buried the wealthy Swiss-Italian village of Plurs (Piuro) in 1618, killing over 1,000.
788. 2025-06-03 - The 1876 Great Backerganj cyclone. A cyclone drove a huge surge into the Bengal delta, killing around 200,000.
789. 2025-06-13 - The abandonment of Plymouth. Repeated eruptions of the Soufrière Hills buried Montserrat's capital Plymouth, a modern Pompeii.
790. 2025-06-15 - The 1642 Kaifeng flood. Defenders deliberately breached the Yellow River's dikes to stop an army, drowning the city of Kaifeng.
791. 2025-06-15 - The Antonine Plague. A pandemic, probably smallpox, swept the Roman Empire from 165 AD, killing millions.
792. 2025-06-15 - 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.
793. 2025-06-16 - The Brescia lightning disaster. Lightning struck a church vault storing gunpowder in Brescia, Italy, in 1769, and the explosion destroyed a sixth of the city.
794. 2025-06-16 - The Columbian disease exchange. Old World diseases like smallpox killed a huge share of the indigenous population of the Americas after 1492.
795. 2025-06-18 - The 1911 Taal eruption. A violent eruption of the Philippines' Taal volcano in 1911 killed over 1,300.
796. 2025-06-18 - The 2003 European heatwave. A record heatwave across Europe killed more than 70,000 people, most of them elderly.
797. 2025-06-25 - The Great Sheffield Flood. The failure of the Dale Dyke Dam sent a wall of water through Sheffield, England, killing about 240.
798. 2025-06-25 - The 1945 Makran earthquake. A megathrust earthquake off Pakistan's Makran coast triggered a tsunami across the Arabian Sea.
799. 2025-06-26 - The 2025 Mediterranean fires. Extreme heat drove wildfires across Turkey, Greece and the Mediterranean again in 2025.
800. 2025-07-01 - The 2025 European heatwaves. Extreme heat again gripped Europe in the summer of 2025, breaking records and fuelling wildfires.
801. 2025-07-09 - Ball lightning - the freak phenomenon. For centuries, witnesses have reported glowing balls of light drifting through storms, a rare, still-unexplained atmospheric mystery.
802. 2025-07-09 - The El Chichón eruption. A surprise eruption of Mexico's El Chichón killed some 2,000 and injected a cooling haze worldwide.
803. 2025-07-12 - The 1990 Denver hailstorm. A hailstorm battered Denver in 1990, one of the costliest in U.S. history at the time.
804. 2025-07-23 - The 1995 Chicago heatwave. A brutal heatwave killed over 700 people in Chicago in a week, mostly isolated elderly residents.
805. 2025-07-24 - The 1920 Haiyuan landslides. China's Haiyuan earthquake triggered enormous loess landslides that buried villages, killing over 200,000.
806. 2025-07-24 - The 1946 Nankaidō tsunami. A great earthquake off southern Japan sent a tsunami along the coast just after the war.
807. 2025-07-28 - The 1957 Golden Angel earthquake. An earthquake toppled Mexico City's landmark Angel of Independence statue in 1957.
808. 2025-08-09 - The St. Elizabeth's Flood. A storm surge burst the dikes of Holland in 1421, drowning villages and creating a vast inland sea.
809. 2025-08-14 - 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.
810. 2025-08-15 - The 1946 Aleutian tsunami at Scotch Cap. The tsunami that destroyed Hawaii in 1946 first swept away the Scotch Cap lighthouse in Alaska.
811. 2025-09-01 - The Aztec famine of One Rabbit. A years-long drought caused a famine in the Aztec empire around 1450 so severe it entered legend as 'One Rabbit'.
812. 2025-09-03 - The 1692 Port Royal earthquake. An earthquake dropped much of the pirate city of Port Royal, Jamaica, into the sea in 1692.
813. 2025-09-07 - Hurricane Iniki
814. 2025-09-16 - Hurricane Floyd
815. 2025-09-18 - The 1138 Aleppo earthquake. One of the deadliest earthquakes ever, it devastated Aleppo in Syria, killing around 230,000.
816. 2025-09-21 - The 1994 Rabaul eruption. Twin eruptions buried much of the town of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea in 1994.
817. 2025-09-29 - The İzmit tsunami. The 1999 İzmit earthquake in Turkey generated a local tsunami in the Sea of Marmara.
818. 2025-10-16 - Himalayan avalanches. Avalanches regularly sweep the high Himalayan valleys, burying villages, roads and mountaineers under snow and ice.
819. 2025-10-18 - The Wichita Falls tornado. 'Terrible Tuesday', a huge tornado tore through Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1979.
820. 2025-10-20 - Hurricane David. 1979.
821. 2025-10-28 - The global drought of 1876-78. A vast El Niño drought caused famines that killed tens of millions across India, China and Brazil.
822. 2025-11-09 - The 1896 Meiji Sanriku tsunami. A tsunami struck Japan's Sanriku coast during a festival, killing over 22,000, the modern origin of the word 'tsunami' worldwide.
823. 2025-11-18 - The North Korean famine. Floods, drought and policy caused a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in North Korea in the 1990s.
824. 2025-11-19 - The Woodward tornado. One of the deadliest tornadoes in Oklahoma history destroyed much of Woodward in 1947.
825. 2025-11-22 - The Guin tornado. One of the Super Outbreak's most violent tornadoes obliterated the town of Guin, Alabama, in 1974.
826. 2025-12-13 - The 856 Damghan earthquake. One of the deadliest earthquakes in history struck Damghan in Persia in 856, killing some 200,000.
827. 2025-12-16 - The great rinderpest panzootic. A cattle plague swept Africa in the 1890s, killing most of the continent's cattle and causing mass famine.
828. 2025-12-27 - The 1930 Merapi eruption. An eruption of Java's Merapi volcano in 1930 sent pyroclastic flows that killed some 1,300.
829. 2026-01-10 - The 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami. A submarine landslide sent a tsunami into Papua New Guinea's coast, killing over 2,000.
830. 2026-01-12 - The 1822 Galunggung eruption. Java's Galunggung erupted with deadly lahars that killed over 4,000.
831. 2026-01-14 - The 1960 Valdivia earthquake. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5, struck southern Chile and sent tsunamis across the Pacific.
832. 2026-01-23 - The Great Plague of London. The last great outbreak of bubonic plague in England killed a quarter of London's people in 1665.
833. 2026-01-27 - The Black Thursday bushfires. The 1851 Black Thursday fires burned a quarter of what is now Victoria, Australia, on a single day.
834. 2026-01-28 - The Agrigento landslide. A slow ground collapse in Agrigento, Sicily, wrecked a whole modern neighbourhood built on unstable clay in 1966.
835. 2026-01-29 - The 2000 Mozambique floods. Cyclone-driven floods submerged much of Mozambique; a woman famously gave birth in a tree awaiting rescue.
836. 2026-02-04 - The 1783 Calabrian earthquakes. A sequence of earthquakes devastated Calabria in southern Italy in 1783, killing tens of thousands.
837. 2026-02-10 - The 1987 Black Dragon Fire. One of the largest wildfires of the 20th century burned across China and the Soviet Union in 1987.
838. 2026-02-11 - The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake. A quake levelled Ashgabat in Soviet Turkmenistan, killing an estimated 110,000.
839. 2026-02-13 - The medieval Egyptian famine. A failure of the Nile flood around 1200 caused a famine so severe that chroniclers recorded scenes of horror in Cairo.
840. 2026-02-16 - The 365 AD Crete earthquake & tsunami. A massive quake off Crete sent a tsunami that devastated the eastern Mediterranean, including Alexandria.
841. 2026-02-19 - The 1962 Val Parghera avalanche. Avalanches repeatedly threaten the road and rail links through the Swiss and Austrian Alps.
842. 2026-03-01 - The 1956 cold wave in Europe. A brutal February cold wave froze rivers and killed thousands across Europe in 1956.
843. 2026-03-02 - The cocoliztli epidemics. Mysterious 'cocoliztli' epidemics killed millions in 16th-century Mexico, possibly a native salmonella.
844. 2026-03-05 - 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.
845. 2026-03-06 - The 1938 Yellow River flood. Chinese forces deliberately breached the Yellow River dikes to slow the Japanese advance, killing up to 800,000.
846. 2026-03-10 - The 1871 Peshtigo Fire. The deadliest wildfire in recorded history swept through Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing up to 2,500 on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire.
847. 2026-03-23 - The 115 Antioch earthquake. An earthquake struck Antioch while the Roman emperor Trajan was wintering there, nearly killing him.
848. 2026-04-01 - The 526 Antioch earthquake. A quake and fire destroyed Antioch in the Byzantine Empire, killing an estimated 250,000.
849. 2026-04-25 - The 1887 Yellow River flood. The Yellow River burst its banks in Henan, China, one of the deadliest floods ever, killing up to 2 million.
850. 2026-05-01 - 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.
851. 2026-05-04 - The Great White Hurricane. The Blizzard of 1888 buried the U.S. Northeast in snow days after the Schoolhouse Blizzard hit the Plains.
852. 2026-05-07 - The 1839 Coringa cyclone. A cyclone and storm surge destroyed the Indian port of Coringa, killing some 300,000 and erasing the town.
853. 2026-05-09 - The 1840 Natchez tornado. The second-deadliest tornado in U.S. history struck Natchez, Mississippi, along the river, killing over 300.
854. 2026-05-12 - The 1957 Valencia flood. The Turia river flooded Valencia, Spain, in 1957, leading the city to divert the river around itself.
855. 2026-05-21 - The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635. One of the most intense hurricanes to strike New England hit the young Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies.
856. 2026-05-30 - The 1935 Quetta earthquake. An earthquake destroyed Quetta in British India (now Pakistan), killing tens of thousands.
857. 2026-06-04 - The 1707 Hōei earthquake. Japan's largest pre-modern earthquake sent a tsunami along the Pacific coast and preceded an eruption of Mount Fuji.
858. 2026-06-08 - The 1953 Flint–Beecher tornado. The last single U.S. tornado to kill over 100 people struck Flint, Michigan.
859. 2026-06-08 - The 1976 Moro Gulf earthquake. An earthquake and tsunami struck the Moro Gulf in the southern Philippines in 1976, killing thousands.
860. 2026-06-15 - The Great Famine of 1876-78. Drought and colonial policy caused a famine that killed millions across southern India.
861. 2026-06-20 - The Rocky Mountain locust swarm. In 1875 the largest recorded locust swarm, trillions of Rocky Mountain locusts, darkened the skies of the American West before the species went extinct.
862. 2026-06-21 - The Burchardi Flood, 1634. A North Sea storm surge tore apart the coast of North Frisia in Germany and Denmark, killing about 15,000.
863. 2026-06-28 - The Hatepe eruption of Taupō. New Zealand's Lake Taupō produced one of the most violent eruptions of the last 5,000 years around 232 AD.
864. 2026-07-01 - The 1883 Krakatoa tsunami. Krakatoa's eruption generated tsunamis up to 30 metres high that killed over 36,000 around the Sunda Strait.
865. 2026-07-02 - Black Sunday, 1935. On 'Black Sunday' a colossal wall of dust rolled across the American Plains, the worst black blizzard of the Dust Bowl.
866. 2026-07-07 - 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.
867. 2026-07-07 - 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.
868. 2026-07-11 - The 1932 Cuba hurricane. The deadliest hurricane in Cuban history drove a huge surge into Santa Cruz del Sur in 1932.
869. 2026-07-12 - The 1993 Hokkaido earthquake. The Hokkaido earthquake and its tsunami devastated the island of Okushiri in Japan in 1993.
870. 2026-07-13 - The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake. The deadliest earthquake in recorded history killed an estimated 830,000 in China's Shaanxi province.
871. 2026-07-13 - Hail as a weapon of ruin. Giant hail has smashed crops and killed people for centuries; deadly hailstorms still strike China and India.
872. 2026-07-14 - The 1998 Bangladesh floods. Monsoon floods submerged two-thirds of Bangladesh for months, displacing 30 million people.
873. 2026-07-15 - The Naga and monsoon landslides. Monsoon-soaked hillsides collapse across South and Southeast Asia every year, burying roads and villages.

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