1949 Eastern Guatemalan Floods | |
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| Total costs | N/A |
| Deaths | 40000 |
The 1949 Eastern Guatemalan floods were a series of violent and devastating floods, following a particularly destructive Atlantic Ocean Hurricane season. Death toll estimates range from 1000 to 40,000, placing the floods as some of the deadliest in recorded history. Apart from the direct deadly consequences of the floods, the disaster had a huge impact in many other spheres of life in Guatemala. It is estimated that the financial consequences of the floods ranged from $15,000,000 to $40,000,000.Landslides and road blockages affected communications within the country, and also impacted distribution of foods and other resources. As news of the floodings in Guatemala broke international headlines, Foreign governments pledged aid to the recovery of the country accordingly. The neighbouring countries of The United States and Cuba rushed to provide immediate aid by plane to victims of the disaster.
Source: Wikipedia 1257 Mount Samalas | |
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| Total costs | N/A |
| Deaths | 20000 |
In 1257, a catastrophic eruption occurred at the Samalas volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok. The event had a probable Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7, making it one of the largest volcanic eruptions during the current Holocene epoch. It created eruption columns reaching tens of kilometres into the atmosphere and pyroclastic flows that buried much of Lombok and crossed the sea to reach the neighbouring island of Sumbawa. The flows destroyed human habitations, including the city of Pamatan, which was the capital of a kingdom on Lombok. Ash from the eruption fell as far as 340 kilometres (210 mi) away in Java; the volcano deposited more than 10 cubic kilometres (2.4 cu mi) of rocks and ash. The eruption was witnessed by people who recorded it on the Babad Lombok, a document written on palm leaves. It left behind a large caldera that contains Lake Segara Anak. Later volcanic activity created more volcanic centres in the caldera, including the Barujari cone, which remains active. The aerosols injected into the atmosphere reduced the solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface, causing a volcanic winter and cooling the atmosphere for several years. This led to famines and crop failures in Europe and elsewhere, although the exact scale of the temperature anomalies and their consequences is still debated. The eruption may have helped trigger the Little Ice Age, a centuries-long cold period during the last thousand years. Before the site of the eruption was known, an examination of ice cores around the world had found a large spike in sulfate deposition around 1257, providing strong evidence of a large volcanic eruption having occurred somewhere in the world. In 2013, scientists linked the historical records about Mount Samalas to these spikes.
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