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This earthquake struck at 11:58 am, reaching a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale and leaving the capital Tokyo and the city of Yokohama in ruins. It also produced a tsunami with waves that reached 12 meters high and caused fires to break out as a result of cooking stoves being overturned in many homes together with heavy winds. Eventually, the fires affected reached over 130 locations. -
A significant waterway on the planet, the Yangtze River is the longest river on the Asian continent. Its source is located in the Plateau of Tibet at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters. Between July and August 1931, China suffered excessive rainfall which, in conjunction with the spring snowmelt in the mountains, led to floods along the Yangtze River. According to government statistics, approximately 2 million people have died in what is regarded as the most lethal flood on record. -
In 1970, Bangladesh (at that time known as East Pakistan) was hit by the Bhola tropical cyclone. The wind speed, based on data by NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division, reached 205 km/h, making it one of the world’s deadliest tropical cyclones to date and one of the most lethal natural disasters in the history of Bangladesh. -
One of the most devastating floods in history occurred in central China as a result of the heavy rains brought by Typhoon Nina that poured down over a three-day period. The typhoon was followed by the failure of the Banqiao dam on the River Ru in the western Chinese province of Henan on August 8 and the failure of 61 dams and reservoirs in other regions. -
Located approximately 110 km east of Beijing, Tangshan is a coal-mining and industrial city that was almost completely destroyed by the earthquake. The majority of the fatalities were caused by the destruction of unreinforced masonry buildings in which people were sleeping. The major shock occurred at 3:42 am. -
Considered to be one of the deadliest recorded tropical cyclones in history, this struck Chittagong, one of the most densely populated regions in Bangladesh with winds reaching a speed of up to 210 km/h. Due to a shortage of potable water and a lack of sanitation, the prevalence of diarrhea and dysentery rocketed with as many as 2,000 deaths reported in the first three weeks after the cyclone had hit. -
On December 26 2004, a disastrous earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter scale struck just off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia in the Indian Ocean and provoked a massive tsunami that hit 12 countries in South Asia and East Africa, traveling at a speed of around 800 km/h and generating waves as high as 30 meters. Due to its speed, people had little time to escape the areas in danger. -
This disastrous earthquake struck at 8:50 am (local time) with a registered magnitude of 7.6 points on the Richter scale. The most affected regions were Kashmir and the North-West Frontier Province (called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after 2010) in Pakistan and nearby regions in India and Afghanistan. -
This category 3 cyclone had a serious impact on Myanmar including its largest city Yangon and was also responsible for landfall in the Ayeyarwady Division. The ecology of the Ayeyarwady and Yangon Divisions, regions where local livelihoods are strongly dependent on natural resources, was devastated by Cyclone Nargis. -
One of the deadliest earthquakes ever registered struck the small island country of Haiti in January 2010. With a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale, the earthquake’s epicenter was 25 km from the capital of Port-au-Prince. The disaster left Haiti facing high levels of damage, fatalities, and casualties. The Caribbean had not seen an earthquake like this in about two centuries.