there have been a number of terrible natural disasters to have occurred in recent memory the tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 is one that comes to mind the total economic cost reached over 300 billion dollars with thousands of people losing their lives however in the grand scheme of recorded human history this event does not even crack the top 10 of worst natural disasters ever the oldest natural disaster on this list dates back to 1556 and there are natural disasters spanning all throughout the last several centuries these natural disasters were cataclysmic fundamentally altering the areas they
impacted for years to come from earthquakes to floods here are the five worst natural disasters in recorded history and you may be surprised to hear that the two top spots happened in the exact same area on november 25th 1839 a destructive tropical cyclone hit the city of karinga a port town in india while there are no official measurements of the storm it's estimated the surge of the storm was 40 feet it came through the harbor city quickly destroying 20 000 vessels in its wake and leading to 300 000 individuals losing their lives this actually wasn't
the first time the city had been hit by a cyclone a similar tropical storm occurred 50 years earlier this one claiming 20 000 lives after the 1789 cyclone the residents were able to rebuild however the 1839 cyclone was so much more severe that the city of karinga remains an incredibly small port town even to this day the cyclone was so severe that it prompted the president of the marine corps of inquiry at kolkata henry pennington to present a study on similar storms to the asiatic society of bengal in 1840 in fact it was at this
meeting that he coined the word cyclone and ever since that's been the go-to word to describe such natural disasters after the fact british officials would name karinga as hope island as a whimsical way to try to protect the area from future natural disasters perhaps it's worked since 1839 there hasn't been another cyclone to that scale to visit the port again a lot of people talk about what would happen if the big one ever came to california the truth of the matter is that it would need to be pretty big to claim the top spot of
the biggest deadliest earthquake in recorded history this happened on january 23rd 1556 when a massive earthquake struck the shaanxi province in northern china the magnitude 8 earthquake hit shangsi and neighboring areas killing an estimated 830 000 people the devastation was so severe that it is believed the earthquake reduced the population of the two affected provinces by 60 percent the earthquake was so large that it's actually been recorded in vivid details there are many animals from the area that contained records of 26 other earthquakes that happened in shaoxi but none of them have been described in
such detail as this what's remarkable is that the earthquake itself only lasted a few seconds but it caused fires and caused intense flooding that lasted for days on end following the devastation experts began to look more thoroughly into what precisely caused earthquakes china also began to invest in other homemaking techniques previously buildings were made out of stone which was very easy to destroy in an earthquake after the 1556 quake more buildings particularly in shaanxi were made out of wood bamboo and other soft materials that would hold up better in a quake paving the way for
safer construction in earthquake-prone areas around the rest of the world having occurred so recently the bola cyclone of 1970 is the most well-documented natural disaster on this list the cyclone first formed on november 3rd 1970 after initially developing it began traveling north growing in intensity as it moved it reached its peak on november 11th when winds reached a speed of 115 miles per hour this is also when it made landfall off the coast of east pakistan now known as bangladesh the surge of storm activity also impacted nearby islands wiping out entire villages and destroying all
of the crops in the region the most impacted areas of the cyclone were tazu mudin and upasila in total it's estimated that anywhere between 500 000 and 1 million people lost their lives in the storm these kinds of cyclones are not rare in the region another destructive cyclone occurred in october of 1960 after that event the pakistani government contacted the u.s for assistance in building up a system to help avoid future environmental disasters the director of the national hurricane center conducted a detailed study and submitted a report the next year unfortunately the pakistani government did
not follow through on all of the suggestions the director had made as a result there was significant criticism of the government's response in the aftermath of the cyclone in the election later that year the opposition party pretty much took control of all the seats up for grabs due to dissatisfaction with the government's response the cyclone also led to the concert for bangladesh in 1971 which was organized by former beatle george harrison it turned out to be an incredibly successful event to raise money and awareness to the region still suffering from devastation china has had a
long and disastrous history of flooding centuries prior to that event that took place in 1887 farmers built dikes near the river to try to contain the flow over time this actually caused the river to flow higher because it had to deposit all of the silt onto the riverbed it all came to a head on september 28 1887 when after days of heavy rainfall the water from the river overcame the dikes specifically water broke through the dikes in hawaiian coup this was a problem because there were many low-lying planes in this vicinity this caused the flooding
to spread incredibly fast throughout the northern part of china it's estimated that it covered 50 000 square miles the flood made its way through various commercial centers and various agricultural settlements multiple estimates report that anywhere between 900 000 and 2 million people lost their lives with millions more becoming homeless in the process what was even worse is that illness and the lack of basic necessities ended up claiming as many lives as what was lost as a direct result of the flood and it still wasn't the worst disaster that even occurred in that region from between
1928 and 1930 china experienced a terrible drought in particular the winter of 1930 was not kind to the region creating huge deposits of snow and ice around the mountains early in 1931 the snow and ice melted and began to flow downstream it finally arrived in the yangtze region during a time when there was heavy rainfall the effects of this massive deluge of water could be seen as early as june of that year when people in low areas had to abandon their houses to add insult to injury the summer of 1931 resulted in severe cyclonic activity
nine cyclones occurred in the region in july alone in an area that normally sees two cyclones every year the flooding impacted an area covering over 110 000 square miles that's equivalent to the size of new york connecticut and new jersey combined numerous waterways throughout the country were affected with the most impacted regions being anhui hunan and xi's among others immediately following the flooding the government estimated that roughly 25 million people had been directly impacted by the water in hindsight some historians believe it could have been as many as 53 million people the estimated death toll
also ranges depending on which reports you look at most estimate that anywhere between 420 000 and 4 million people lost their lives as a result of the flooding in 1931 and that's just how many people died directly from the flooding the water also brought with it a host of diseases to the region in measles dysentery malaria and cholera these diseases spread so easily due to massive overcrowding in areas where people fled to in order to escape the flooding additionally a lack of food caused many people to resort to eating weeds and tree bark it wouldn't
be the last flood to devastate china but as of this video it remains the single most devastating natural disaster in all of recorded human history there have been plenty of environmental disasters to impact humanity over the centuries these have been completely out of humanity's control and while society has advanced greatly since the 1500s we're still very much at the whims of mother nature many places are just one tsunami or earthquake away from being upended for decades so make sure to remain vigilant over what disasters could potentially impact your city be sure to click the link
on screen to check out our video of nuclear tests that went horribly wrong trust me it's not what you expect with that thanks for watching and tune in next time
