Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
Natural Disasters
Earthquakes, eruptions, floods, and the planet's most violent natural events.
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
Lake Nyos belched a CO2 cloud that suffocated 1,746 people overnight
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
Tambora's 1815 eruption was the largest in recorded history — and cooled the whole planet
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
The Mississippi once ran backwards during the 1811-1812 New Madrid quakes
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
Yellowstone is a supervolcano whose last giant eruption ejected 1,000 cubic km of rock
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
The tallest wave ever recorded towered higher than the Empire State Building
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
Each step up the magnitude scale means about 32 times more earthquake energy
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
Most of the world's earthquakes strike along one Pacific horseshoe
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake is the most powerful ever recorded, at magnitude 9.5
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
Volcanoes are ranked on a scale where each step is ten times bigger
◆ On this day
On this day in Natural Disasters
26 Apr 1986
11 Mar 2011
27 Mar 1964
27 Mar 1977
14 Apr 1912
16 Apr 1947
20 Apr 2010
Earth & Climate Natural Disasters
The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, triggering the largest US marine oil spill
18 May 1980
31 May 1889




















