World's Worst Natural Calamities in the Last Century

Bangalore: The citizens of this global village are not only the victims of manmade war and disaster but are also greatly affected by natural disasters since time immemorial. The recent floods in Uttrakhand prove to be one such  worst natural disasters happened in India.

Here is the list of the world’s most hazardous natural disaster, as listed by Yusuf Begg for The EconomicTimes.

1. Indian Ocean tsunami-

It was the year 2004, post Christmas Day that is on 26^th December when the World had witnessed the worst ever natural disaster, called the ‘tsunami’.

The Tsunami set off with 9 magnitude quake and occurred from under the Indian Ocean, near the west coast of Indonesian island of Sumatra. It traveled as far as 3,000 miles to Africa and still arrived with sufficient force to kill people and destroy property. The Indian Ocean tsunami had the energy equivalent to 20,000+ Hiroshima-type A-bombs damages across 15 countries with the most serious destruction reported from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. It took over 310,000 lives and around 1.69 million lost their homes and their basic needs too. It is estimated that about $10 billion worth of damages were incurred by this disaster.

2. Huang He floods-

Huang He also known as Yellow River is the second longest river of China with a length of 3,395 miles. This river is often considered as “China’s Sorrow,” as it the most and worst flood prone areas and recorded around 1500 times flood since 2^nd century B.C. Though China has come across a series of floods in their lifetime, the floods of Huang He in 1938 in Eastern China proved more fatal to the lives of its citizens where millions died altogether.

This flood not only took the lives of the people but it also completely inundated 34,000 square miles of lands and around 800 square miles of land was partly flooded. 80 million people were left homeless and 850,000 to 4,000,000 people were estimated to be hit by this deadliest ever recordedflood in history.