We want to think that tragedies teach us at least something - for example, to help each other in difficult situations and work together to solve problems.
But sometimes, even when the disaster is over, the tragedy continues. Humans plunge into chaos and make the worst moments of humanity's life even worse. As a result, the details of the darkest events become so gruesome that they tend to be left out in history textbooks.
1. Events in Tiananmen Square - China has issued an invoice to the families of the victims for the spent bullets
In 1989, after the death of a controversial state and politician Hu Yaobang, chinese students went to Tiananmen Square to try and make real change in China. They put forward a list of demands and went on a hunger strike in hopes of ending corruption and taking the first steps towards democracy.
However, their efforts were in vain as the army intervened. By order of the government, soldiers and tanks moved to Tiananmen Square, which is located in the heart of Beijing. In this unequal battle, at least 300 students were killed. According to some estimates, the death toll was as high as 2,700.
This is usually the end of the story, but there is one small detail that makes it even worse. After the assassination, the Chinese government billed the victims' families for the bullets spent, according to some sources. The parents of the protesting students had to pay 27 cents (in modern money) for each bullet fired at their child.
The Chinese government denied the accusations in its direction. However, there is every reason to believe that the above reports were true.
2. Massacre in Songmi - President Nixon pardoned the person responsible for the crime
The worst incident of the Vietnam War is considered to be the Song Mi massacre. In 1968, 350 South Vietnamese civilians were brutally killed by American soldiers. They raped women, maimed children - and did not receive any punishment for this.
Of all those involved in the murder, only one soldier was charged: William Colley. The court found Collie guilty of killing 22 civilians and sentenced him to life imprisonment... However, he never ended up in jail. He was put under house arrest, which, however, did not last long. Collie was under house arrest for only three years, and then President Richard Nixon pardoned him.
However, this story is not so simple. The man who reported the brutal murder to the American authorities and testified against the people who committed it was Hugh Thompson. He risked own life trying to save as many Vietnamese as possible. For his courage and heroism, Thompson received death threats as a reward. Every morning, unknown people left mutilated animals on the porch of his house. For the rest of his life, Thompson struggled with PTSD.
3. Pompeii - It got so hot in a nearby city that people's heads could not stand it and literally exploded
The fall of Pompeii is one of the most notorious natural disasters in human history. The entire city was submerged in a sea of volcanic ash, which claimed the lives of thousands of people.
However, in comparison with Herculaneum, Pompeii, so to speak, got off easy. A man who witnessed the volcanic eruption that occurred in 79 AD described this terrible catastrophe: "A huge black cloud descended on the land and sea, accompanied by bright flashes of flame."
This huge black cloud covered the whole of Herculaneum. It became incredibly hot on its streets - the air temperature reached more than 500 degrees Celsius. In such unbearable conditions, people's skin instantly burned, their bones turned black, and their heads could not stand it and literally exploded.
4. Act of terrorism September 11, 2001 - Fallout has led to an increase in cancer and car accidents
On September 11, 2001, when planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, about 3,000 innocent people were killed. It was the worst terrorist attack in US history. However, over the next few years, the number of her victims increased significantly.
In the aftermath of the notorious events of September 11, 2001, people became afraid of flying, resulting in a 20 percent drop in air ticket sales. Instead, everyone began to actively use cars, despite the fact that terrestrial view transport is considered more dangerous than air. In the twelve months after the attack, about 1,600 Americans died in car accidents, just because they were afraid to fly.
But the worst of the consequences of the events of September 11, 2001 is the increase in the incidence of cancer. The Twin Towers were built from 400 tons of asbestos, which after the explosion turned to dust and spread throughout the city. According to some reports, more than 400 thousand people were affected by the asbestos cloud. As a result, cancer rates in New York City have risen significantly since the tragedy. In addition, over 70 percent of the people who helped cope with the aftermath of the explosion now suffer from lung problems.
5. Great Famine in Ireland - Queen Victoria forbade the Sultan from helping her people
When there was famine in Ireland, Majid Abdul Khan, Sultan Ottoman Empire volunteered to help the country. In 1847 he loaded the ships with food and offered Ireland £ 10,000 in financial aid to deal with the crisis.
Ironically, British diplomats rejected his offer. They explained this by the fact that, according to the royal protocol, the amount of foreign aid should not exceed the amount that Queen Victoria is willing to donate to save her people. At their request, the Sultan reduced his monetary donation to £ 1,000.
Be that as it may, the Irish were still delighted with his "gesture of great generosity." In gratitude, they wrote to him: "For the first time in history, a Muslim ruler representing a large Islamic population shows warm sympathy for the Christian people."
6. Black Death- Plague led to genocide of Jews
The Black Death in the middle of the XIV century ruined the lives of 75 to 200 million people, destroying about a third of the population of Europe. It was a terrible tragedy, which, oddly enough, was blamed on the Jews.
The fact is that the Europeans considered the plague to be part of a Jewish conspiracy. They argued that Jews poisoned water in wells throughout the country to make the Christian people suffer. At first it was just a theory, which later received "confirmation." The Inquisition began to hunt down Jews; they were tortured until they agreed that they were responsible for the outbreak of the plague. After that, the people rebelled. They took children from Jewish families. They tied Jews to poles and burned them alive. In one such incident, more than 2,000 people were killed.
The Black Death was certainly not part of the Jewish conspiracy, but people believed otherwise. Their revenge did not spare anyone. The city of Strasbourg even passed a law that prohibited Jews from appearing in the city for 100 years.
7. Hurricane Katrina - Refusing to Help Refugees
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, countless people were left homeless. In search of safer places, they were forced to flee to neighboring cities. The New Orleans police assisted them by pointing the way to the bridge that led to the city of Gretna.
However, on the bridge, these people encountered an obstacle in the form of four police cars that blocked the road. Police officers stood next to them, holding shotguns. They drove the refugees away, shouting after them: "We don't need another Superdome here!" According to some reports, they even took food and water from people before chasing them away.
Arthur Lawson, Chief of Police for Gretna, confirmed the incident. "They don't belong here," he commented on his refusal to help refugees from New Orleans.
8. Wounded Knee Brook Massacre - Twenty Soldiers Awarded with Medals of Honor
In 1890 american troops attacked the Lakota camp. The attack killed about 200 innocent men, women and children. The people who did this (this event went down in history as the Wounded Knee Massacre) were the real killers. Nevertheless, twenty of them were awarded the Medals of Honor. General Miles called it "an insult to the memory of the dead," but his protest went nowhere.
During the award ceremony, Sergeant Toy was said to receive a medal "for courage in the fight against hostile Indians." In fact, he was rewarded for shooting the fleeing Native Americans in the back who were unarmed. Another soldier, Lieutenant Garlington, received a medal for preventing the escape of the victims. He forced them to hide in a ravine, where they were shot and killed by Lieutenant Gresham.
Sergeant Loyd, one of those soldiers who were awarded the Medal of Honor for the massacre of unarmed Indians, committed suicide two years later - just days before the anniversary of the Wounded Knee massacre. What prompted him to commit suicide is not known. Perhaps it was conscience.
9. Great Fire of London - The townspeople hanged a mentally retarded person
Everyone who knew Robert Hubert considered him “not quite a healthy man". In all likelihood, he was a mentally retarded or insane person. He could not utter a word in English language and his limbs were paralyzed. But despite all this, he was accused of the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was hanged.
Hubert was out of town when the fire struck. He appeared two days later. The man wandered the streets, incessantly repeating the word "Yes!" In 1666, in order to prove a person's guilt, there was no need to take special efforts... The crowd grabbed Hubert and dragged him to the police station.
There he answered everything that was asked of him with the word “Yes!”. He even "confessed" that a Frenchman had paid him a shilling to set London on fire. Hubert agreed with every version, but he was hanged anyway.
Fifteen years later, the captain of the ship showed up and helped Hubert get to London. He told the townspeople that when the Great Fire happened, the poor fellow was not in town. But by then it was too late.
10. "Titanic" - Invoices issued to the families of the victims
The British shipping company White Star Line was very frugal. According to the contract, all the staff who were on board the ship were fired the very second the Titanic began to sink. The company did not want to pay the crew members money for not performing their immediate duties while the ship was sinking.
After the Titanic sank, the families of the victims were informed that they would have to pay the cost of the freight if they wanted to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones. Most of them could not afford it, which is why today many of those who died in the tragedy have memorials instead of graves.
For musicians, things were even worse. Members of the orchestra, who desperately continued to play even as the ship sank, were registered as independent contractors. This meant that the White Star Line was legally unrelated to them. The families of the other crew members received compensation for the loss of breadwinners, and the relatives of the perished musicians were not paid a dime. But they were billed for the "spoiled form".
The situation around the Bolshoi Barrier reef continues to deteriorate and threatens to turn into the largest catastrophe in the history of mankind. reCensor remembered when ecology was still in state of emergency due to human actions.
Scientists believe that, despite all the efforts of environmentalists, the world's largest coral reef is threatened with destruction in the near future. More recently, experts have noted that more than 50% of Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in the process of death. According to the updated data, the indicator increased to 93%.
Formation so unique natural education happened about 10 thousand years ago. It includes almost 3 thousand different coral reefs. The length of the Great Barrier Reef is 2.5 thousand kilometers with an area of 344 thousand square kilometers... The coral reef is home to billions of different living organisms.
In 1981, UNESCO recognized the Great Barrier Reef as a natural wonder that must be protected. However, in 2014, environmentalists began to notice that many corals had lost their color. It should be noted that similar changes have occurred to many coral reefs around the world, so scientists initially thought it was a standard anomaly. But after a few months, it became clear that the number of bleached corals was growing exponentially.
Terry Hughes, head of the James Cook University Coral Reef Research Center of Excellence, said coral bleaching is almost always fatal. “Corals can be saved if the discoloration rate has not reached 50%. On this moment More than half of the Great Barrier Reef corals have a bleaching rate of 60% to 100%.
Environmentalists have been sounding the alarm for several years now, as the death of corals will lead to the disappearance of the entire ecosystem. Coral bleaching took place in several stages. 2015 saw the largest wave of bleaching, but scientists believe the biggest extinction is yet to come. “The reason for this is climate change associated with global warming... The temperature of the waters in the oceans has risen dramatically, as a result of which the corals have begun to die. The saddest thing is that we do not know how to confront this problem, so the extinction of the Great Barrier Reef will continue in the future, ”the scientists state. 
Also, one of the reasons for the extinction of corals is considered the disaster of a large industrial tanker that occurred in 2010. As a result of the tanker crash, more than 65 tons of coal and 975 tons of oil fell into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef.
Experts are confident that this incident has become an irreparable environmental disaster. "V modern world a tendency has formed that leads to the fact that due to extremely careless human activities, almost all animals inhabiting our planet will die. Even doom The aral sea cannot match the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, ”says Professor Terry Hughes.
Most of the largest environmental tragedies occurred in the XX-XXI centuries. Below is a list of the 10 largest environmental disasters in history, as collected by reCensor's correspondents.
One of the largest incidents that caused serious damage to the environment is the collapse of the oil tanker "Prestige". The incident happened on November 19, 2002 on the coast of Europe. The ship got into a severe storm, which caused a huge hole in its hull, more than 30 meters long. Every day the tanker is at least 1,000 tons of oil, which was thrown into the waters of the Atlantic. In the end, the tanker split into two parts, sinking with all the cargo stored on it. The total amount of oil that entered the Atlantic Ocean was 20 million gallons.
2. Bhopal leak methyl isocyanate
The largest toxic vapor leak in history occurred in 1984 methyl isocyanate in Bhopal city. The tragedy caused the death of more than 3 thousand people. In addition, another 15 thousand people died later as a result of exposure to the poison. According to experts, the volume of lethal vapors in the atmosphere was about 42 tons. It is still unknown what caused the accident.
3. Explosion at the Nipro plant
In 1974, at the Nipro plant, located in Great Britain, a powerful explosion thundered, followed by a fire. According to experts, the explosion was so powerful that it could only be repeated by collecting 45 tons of TNT. 130 people became victims of the incident. However, the big problem the release of ammonia, as a result of which thousands of people with visual and respiratory diseases were admitted to hospitals.
4. Largest pollution of the North Sea
In 1988, on the Piper-Alpha oil platform, biggest accident in the history of oil production. The damage from the accident was US $ 4 billion. The accident caused a powerful explosion that completely destroyed the oil production platform. Almost all the personnel of the enterprise were killed during the accident. Over the next days, oil continued to flow into the North Sea, the waters of which are now among the most polluted in the world.
5. The largest nuclear disaster
The largest environmental disaster in the history of mankind is an explosion on Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which took place in 1986 on the territory of Ukraine. The explosion was caused by an accident in the fourth power unit. nuclear power plant... The explosion killed more than 30 people.
However, the most terrible consequence is the outburst huge amount radiation into the atmosphere. At the moment, the number of people killed as a result of radiation contamination in subsequent years, it exceeded several thousand. Their number continues to grow, despite the zinc-plated sarcophagus that sealed the exploded reactor.
In 1989, a major environmental disaster struck the coast of Alaska. The Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit the reef and suffered a serious hole. As a result, the entire contents in the amount of 9 million gallons of oil were in the water. Almost 2.5 thousand kilometers of the coast of Alaska were covered with oil. This accident caused the death of tens of thousands of living organisms living both in water and on land.
In 1986, as a result of the tragedy at the Swiss factory chemical industry the river Rhine is no longer safe for swimming. The chemical plant burned for several days. During this time, more than 30 tons poisonous substances, poured into the water, destroying millions of living organisms, and contaminating all drinking sources.
In 1952, a terrible catastrophe occurred in London, the reasons for which are still unknown. On December 5, the capital of Great Britain plunged into acrid smog. At first, the townspeople took it for an ordinary fog, but after a few days it did not dissipate. People with symptoms of pulmonary disease began to be admitted to hospitals. In just 4 days, about 4 thousand people died, most of of whom are children and old people.
9. Oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico
In 1979, another oil disaster struck in the Gulf of Mexico. The accident happened at the Istok-1 drilling rig. As a result of malfunctions, almost 500 thousand tons of oil spilled into the water. The well was closed only after a year.
10. The collapse of the oil tanker "Amoco Cadiz"
In 1978 in Atlantic Ocean the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz sank. The reason for the crash was underwater rocks, which the captain of the ship did not notice. As a result of the disaster, the coast of France was flooded with 650 million liters of oil. The crash of an oil tanker killed tens of thousands of fish and birds that lived in the coastal region.
TOP 10 largest environmental disasters in history updated: July 7, 2016 by the author: EDITORIAL
For hundreds of years of sailing on various ships, sailing ships and barges across the vast seas and oceans, there have been many all kinds of accidents and shipwrecks. Some of them have even been featured in films, the most popular of which is, of course, the Titanic. But what shipwrecks were the largest in terms of the size of the ship and the number of victims? In this ranking, we answer this question by presenting the largest maritime disasters.
11
The rating is opened by a British passenger liner, which was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915, in an area designated by the Kaiser government as a submarine war zone. The ship, sailing with a painted-over name and not raising any flag above itself, sank in 18 minutes 13 kilometers from the coast of Ireland. Killed 1198 people from 1959 who were on board. The destruction of this ship set up public opinion many countries against Germany and contributed to the entry of the United States into the First world war two years later.
10
The single-screw steamer had a capacity of 7142 register tons, a length of 132 meters, a width of 17 meters, and a maximum speed of 11 knots. On April 12, 1944, a steamer with explosives with a total mass of more than 1,500 tons stood for unloading at the pier of the Bombay port. There were other cargoes on board - 8,700 tons of cotton, 128 bars of gold, sulfur, timber, engine oil, etc. The ship was loaded in violation of safety regulations. Around 2 pm a fire broke out on board, and no actions helped to eliminate it. At 16:06 an explosion thundered, from which tidal wave such force that the ship "Jalampada" with a displacement of almost 4000 tons was on the roof of a 17-meter warehouse. After 34 min. the second explosion thundered.
The burning cotton scattered within a radius of 900 meters from the epicenter and set fire to everything: ships, warehouses, houses. A strong wind from the sea drove a wall of fire over the city. The fires were eliminated only after 2 weeks. It took about 7 months to restore the port. Official statistics announced 1,376 deaths, 2,408 people were admitted to hospitals. The fire destroyed 55,000 tons of grain, thousands of tons of seeds, oil, oil; a huge amount of military equipment and almost one square mile of city blocks. 6 thousand firms went bankrupt, 50 thousand people lost their jobs. Many small and 4 large ships, dozens of them were destroyed.
9
It was with this ship that the most famous disaster on the water occurred. The British steamship White Star Line was the second of three Olympic-class twin steamers and the largest passenger liner in the world at the time of construction. Gross tonnage 46328 register tons, displacement 66000 tons. The ship is 269 meters long, 28 meters wide, and 52 meters high. The engine room had 29 boilers and 159 coal furnaces. Maximum speed 25 knots. During the maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, he collided with an iceberg and sank after 2 hours and 40 minutes. There were 2224 people on board. Of these, 711 people were saved, 1513 died. The Titanic catastrophe became legendary, several feature films were shot based on its plot.
8
In the harbor of the Canadian city of Halifax on December 6, 1917, the French military cargo ship Mont Blanc, which was fully loaded with one explosive - TNT, pyroxylin and picric acid, collided with the Norwegian ship Imo. As a result of the strongest explosion, the port and a significant part of the city were completely destroyed. About 2,000 people died in the explosion under the rubble of buildings and because of the fires that erupted after the explosion. Approximately 9000 people were injured and 400 people lost their sight. The explosion in Halifax is one of the most powerful explosions arranged by mankind, this explosion is considered the most powerful explosion pre-nuclear era.
7
This French auxiliary cruiser served as a flagship and took part in the neutralization of the Greek fleet. Displacement - 25,000 tons, length - 166 meters, width - 27 meters, power - 29,000 horsepower, speed - 20 knots, cruising range - 4,700 miles at 10 knots. She sank in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece on February 26, 1916 after a torpedo attack by the German submarine U-35. Of the 4,000 people on board, 3,130 were killed, 870 were saved.
6
After 1944, this German passenger ocean liner was converted into a floating hospital, participated in the evacuation of mostly wounded soldiers and refugees from East Prussia from the advancing Red Army. The liner left the port of Pillau on February 9, 1945 and headed for Kiel, with more than 4,000 people on board - wounded servicemen, soldiers, refugees, medical personnel and crew members. On the night of February 10 at 00:55 the Soviet submarine S-13 torpedoed the liner with two torpedoes. The ship sank 15 minutes later, killing 3,608 and rescuing 659 people. When torpedoing the liner, the submarine commander was convinced that in front of him was not a passenger liner, but a military cruiser.
5
The Doña Paz passenger ferry, registered in the Philippines, sank on December 20, 1987 at about 10 pm in the area of Marinduke Island after a collision with the tanker Vector. At the same time, about 4,375 people died, making this the largest maritime disaster in peacetime.
4
This passenger-cargo ship of the "Adjara" type was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928, and on November 7, 1941, was sunk by the Germans near the Crimean coast. The death toll was, according to various estimates, from 3,000 to 4,500 people. On the ship were several thousand wounded soldiers and evacuated citizens, including the personnel of 23 military and civil hospitals, the leadership of the pioneer camp and part of the party leadership of the Crimea. The evacuees were being loaded in a hurry, and the exact number is not known. There is a version that the cause of this naval disaster was the criminal mistakes of the command of the Black Sea Fleet. The overcrowded motor ship, instead of making the transition to the Caucasian one, was sent by the command to Yalta.
3
A freighter built in Oslo, Norway, launched on April 4, 1940. It was confiscated by the Germans after the occupation of Norway by Germany. At first it was used as a conditional target for the training of German submarine crews. Later, the ship participated in the evacuation of people by sea from the advancing Red Army. It was armed with combat cannons. This ship managed to make four cruises, in which 19,785 people were evacuated. On the night of April 16, 1945, the ship making the fifth cruise was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine L-3, after which the Goya sank in the Baltic Sea. More than 6,900 people died in the crash.
2
On May 3, 1945, a tragedy occurred in the Baltic Sea, which killed approximately 8,000 people. The German liner "Cap Arcona" and the cargo ship "Tilbeck", transporting prisoners from the evacuated concentration camps, came under fire from the British aircraft. As a result, more than 5,000 people died on Cap Arcona, about 2,800 on Tilbeck. According to one version, this raid was a mistake on the part of the British Air Force, who believed that there were German troops on the ships, according to the other, the pilots were ordered to destroy everything. enemy ships in the area.
1
The most on the water happened with this German passenger liner, which since 1940 was converted into a floating hospital. During World War II it was used as an infirmary, a hostel for the 2nd training brigade of submariners. The death of a ship torpedoed on January 30, 1945 by the Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of A.I. Marinesko is considered biggest disaster v maritime history- according to estimates of a number of historians, the real losses could have been more than 9000 people.
At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second blew up an empty pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. By the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some of the lifeboats were launched, and yet in icy water there were a lot of people. An anti-aircraft gun came off the deck from the strong heel of the ship and crushed one of the boats, full of people... About an hour after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff sank completely.
You cannot live in the past, dream about the future, you need to value the present, rejoice in every day you live. The horrors that befell humanity in the twentieth century cannot be forgotten. You will find the most tragic events, shocking lessons of fate in our review.
Water disasters
The death of thousands of people in the water is caused by various reasons: the human factor, design errors, military operations, natural disasters. Consider the most ambitious in terms of the number of victims of the tragedy that occurred in the last century on the water:
1. "Goya". On a warship confiscated by the Germans after their occupation of Norwegian territories during the Great Patriotic War, 7,000 people died. On April 16, 1945, a torpedo was directed at a powerful ship from a Russian submarine, as a result of which the Goya sank in the Baltic Sea.
2. "Wilhelm Gustloff". The German ship is named after a Nazi party leader. At the time of construction, it was considered the largest ship in the world. Before the war, it was used as a means of recreation. The ship sank on January 30, 1945. The reason is the attack by the Soviet military from a submarine. The exact composition of the passengers is unknown, but according to the official version, 5,348 people died. There were women and children on board.
3. Mont Blanc. On December 6, 1917, a French military ship exploded in a Canadian harbor and collided with the ship Imo (Norway). As a result of the fire, few survived. The mortality rate is 2,000 people (1,950 people were identified), and the reason is a banal human factor. Apart from the pre-nuclear era, this explosion was the most powerful in the history of mankind. About the terrible tragedy, you can watch a film filmed in Canada in 2003 - "City of Destruction".
4. "Bismarck". The German battleship was sunk by British aircraft on June 12, 1944 during the war. The number of victims was 1,995.
The sinking of the Titanic At the time of commissioning, the ship was considered the largest on earth. The giant ship sank on its first cruise on April 15, 1912, colliding with an iceberg.
Horror and death in the air
In the middle of the twentieth century, air travel became widespread. Active development passenger aviation has led to an excess of deaths in the sky compared to the "water" mortality. Here is a list of "bright" tragedies that claimed the lives of many innocent people:
1. Collision in Tenerife. The disaster took place on March 27, 1977. Place of event - Canary Islands(Tenerife). The fatal "meeting" of the two liners caused the death of 583 people. 61 people managed to escape the tragedy. For the period of the twentieth century, this plane crash is the largest in terms of the number civil aviation.
2. The disaster near Tokyo. On August 12, 1985, a Japanese airliner, 12 minutes after its takeoff, lost control, having lost its vertical stabilizer. For 32 minutes, the crew fought to save the plane in the air, but the collision with Mount Otsutaka affected the destructive outcome of events. 520 people died, but only 4 survived. The catastrophe is called the largest in the history of "one plane".
3. Charkhi Dadri (city in India). The plane crash occurred as a result of a collision of the flagship and Kazakhstani airliners at an altitude of 4,109 meters. All passengers were killed, including the crew of both aircraft (349 people in total).
4. Air crash near Paris. On March 3, 1974, a wide-body airliner built by a Turkish company killed 346 people. A few minutes after takeoff, the cargo compartment door suddenly opened.
Explosive compression destroyed all control systems. The plane was picketing and crashed into the forest. Investigation indicates imperfection locking mechanism in the compartment. Since then, many airlines have redesigned their aircraft to avoid catastrophic repetitions.
5. Terrorist attack near Cork. India's flagship carrier was the victim of a brutal terrorist attack on its way to London. Literally a few minutes before arrival, an explosion occurred on board the aircraft and all those in it were killed (329 people). This is the largest terrorist attack in the history of Canada.
Tragedies on earth
Some of the tragedies that happened on earth in the last century still cause concern and apprehension, continuing to destroy the health and lives of ordinary people, namely:
1. Bhopal disaster. The man-made tragedy is the largest in history. An accident occurred at a chemical plant in India (1984). Killed 18,000 people. 3,000 of those killed became victims of instant death, and the rest died in the months and years after the tragedy. It was not possible to establish the cause of the terrible event.
2. ChNPP. On April 26, 1986, there was a major fatal accident, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant(Ukraine). Emission into the air of a huge amount radioactive substances caused the death of hundreds of people, and not immediately, but gradually.
3. Piper Alpha. At the oil station in 1988, 167 people (staff members) died, 59 people were lucky, they managed to survive. This disaster is the largest in the oil industry.
In addition to man-made tragedies in the twentieth century, there were many other shocking events - a war, the total number of millions of victims of which can no longer be counted: the First World War (1914-1818), Civil War in Russia (1917-1923), World War II (1939-1945), Korean War (1950-1053).
Natural disasters
1. Cyclone "Bhola". The disaster happened in 1970. The tropical element swept across several territories of Pakistan and Bengal, wiping out cities and small villages. The researchers were unable to find out the exact number of citizens who died (approximately 5,000,000 people).
2. Valdiv earthquake (1960 - Chile). The resulting tsunami did not save many innocent residents. The number of victims has reached several thousand people. Beyond death a natural phenomenon caused impressive damage to the affected territories (estimated cost - $ 500 million).
3. Megatsunami in Alaska (1958). Earthquake, landslides, the collapse of stones and ice into the water, the world's highest tsunami. The element has casualties in the amount of 5,000,000 people.
The worship of the four natural elements can be traced in many philosophical and religious movements... Of course, modern man, thinks it's funny. He, like the hero of Turgenev's novel, Yevgeny Bazarov, considers nature not a temple, but rather a workshop. However, nature often reminds of its omnipotence, throwing natural disasters to people. And then there is nothing left to do but to pray to the elements for mercy. Throughout its history, which only natural disasters did not interfere in the life of mankind.
Element earth
The epicenter was in Shaanxi province. Today it is difficult to say what its magnitude was, but some scientists, based on geological data, call it 8 points. But the point is not so much in its capacity as in the number of victims - 830 thousand people. This death toll is the highest among all earthquakes.
2.2 billion cubic meters - such are the scales, or rather the volumes, of the landslide, all this loose material slid from the slopes of the Muzkol ridge (height - 5 thousand meters above sea level). The village of Usoy was completely overwhelmed, the flow of the Mughrab River stopped, a new lake Sarezkoye appeared, which, expanding, flooded several more villages.
Element water
The most devastating flooding also occurred in China. The season was rainy, resulting in the flooding of the Yangtze and Yellow He rivers. In total, about 40 million people were affected, 4 million people died. In some places, the water disappeared only six months later.
Although why look for natural disasters in Asian countries when in 1824 a devastating flood occurred in. And today, on the walls of some old houses, you can see memorial marks that demonstrate the then water level in the streets. Fortunately, the death toll has not reached even a thousand, but no one knows the exact number of victims, many are missing.
One of the worst tsunamis in Europe happened this year. It affected many coastal countries, but Portugal suffered the most. The capital city of Lisbon was practically wiped out from the face of the earth. More than 100 thousand people died, cultural and historical monuments, for example, paintings by Rubens and Caravaggio, disappeared.
Element air
Hurricane San Calixto II, which raged for a week in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, claimed over 27 thousand innocent lives. There is no exact data on its strength, trajectory of movement, it is likely that its speed exceeded 320 km / h.
This powerful hurricane originated in the Atlantic Basin, its maximum speed reached 285 km / h. 11 thousand people died and about the same number disappeared without a trace.
8.
You and I have become witnesses of this event. From news stories, they watched the ravages of the hurricane, which killed 1,836 people and caused $ 125 billion in damage.
Element fire
That hot summer in Greece there were 3 thousand fires. Territories affected with total area 2.7 thousand sq. km. These were agricultural land, forests, olive groves. The fires claimed 79 lives.
Speaking of fire, how not to mention fiery eruptions. The powerful eruption of Krakatoa that year destroyed the island itself, killing 2,000 people. The volcanic explosion triggered a tsunami that hit neighboring islands, killing another 36,000 people.
