1789-1793 Doji bara famine | |
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| Total costs | N/A |
| Deaths | 11000000 |
The Doji bara famine (also Skull famine) of 1791–1792 in the Indian subcontinent was brought on by a major El Niño event lasting from 1789–1795 and producing prolonged droughts. Recorded by William Roxburgh, a surgeon with the British East India Company, in a series of pioneering meteorological observations, the El Niño event caused the failure of the South Asian monsoon for four consecutive years starting in 1789.The resulting famine, which was severe, caused widespread mortality in Hyderabad, Southern Maratha Kingdom, Deccan, Gujarat, and Marwar (then all ruled by Indian rulers). In regions like the Madras Presidency (governed by the East India Company), where the famine was less severe, and where records were kept, half the population perished in some districts, such as in the Northern Circars. In other areas, such as Bijapur, although no records were kept, both the famine and the year 1791 came to be known in folklore as the Doji bara (also Doĝi Bar) or the 'skull famine,' on account, it was said, of the 'bones of the victims which lay unburied whitening the roads and the fields.' As in the Chalisa famine of a decade earlier, many areas were depopulated from death or migration. According to one study, a total of 11 million people may have died during the years 1789–1792 as a result of starvation or accompanying epidemics of disease.
Source: Wikipedia 1944 Mount Vesuvius | |
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| Total costs | N/A |
| Deaths | 27 |
Mount Vesuvius ( viss-OO-vee-əs; Italian: Vesuvio [veˈzuːvjo, -ˈsuː-]; Neapolitan: 'O Vesuvio [o vəˈsuːvjə], also 'A muntagna or 'A montagna; Latin: Vesuvius [wɛˈsʊwɪ.ʊs], also Vesevius, Vesvius or Vesbius) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera, caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae, as well as several other settlements. The eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), erupting molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 6×105 cubic metres (7.8×105 cu yd) per second. More than 1,000 people are thought to have died in the eruption, though the exact toll is unknown. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Today, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living near enough to be affected by an eruption, with 600,000 in the danger zone, making it the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. It has a tendency towards violently explosive eruptions, which are now known as Plinian eruptions.
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