1970 Great Bhola Cyclone | |
|---|---|
| Total costs | 450000000 paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid paid |
| Deaths | 500000 |
The 1970 Bhola cyclone was a devastating tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) and India's West Bengal on November 11, 1970. It remains the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded and one of the world's deadliest natural disasters. At least 500,000 people lost their lives in the storm, primarily as a result of the storm surge that flooded much of the low-lying islands of the Ganges Delta. Bhola was the sixth and strongest cyclonic storm of the 1970 North Indian Ocean cyclone season.The cyclone formed over the central Bay of Bengal on November 8 and traveled northward, intensifying as it did so. It reached its peak with winds of 185 km/h (115 mph) on November 10, and made landfall on the coast of East Pakistan on the following afternoon. The storm surge devastated many of the offshore islands, wiping out villages and destroying crops throughout the region. In the most severely affected Upazila, Tazumuddin, over 45% of the population of 167,000 was killed by the storm. The Pakistani government, led by junta leader General Yahya Khan, was criticized for its delayed handling of relief operations following the storm, both by local political leaders in East Pakistan and by the international media. During the election that took place a month later, the opposition Awami League gained a landslide victory in the province, and continuing unrest between East Pakistan and the central government triggered the Bangladesh Liberation War, which led to a genocide and eventually concluded with the creation of the independent country of Bangladesh.
Source: Wikipedia 1871 Peshtigo fire | |
|---|---|
| Total costs | N/A |
| Deaths | 2500 |
The Peshtigo fire was a large forest fire on Oct. 8, 1871, in northeastern Wisconsin, United States, including much of the southern half of the Door Peninsula and adjacent parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The largest community in the affected area was Peshtigo, Wisconsin which had a population of approximately 1,700 residents. The fire burned about 1.2 million acres and is the deadliest wildfire in recorded history, with the number of deaths estimated between 1,500 and 2,500. Although the exact number of deaths is debated, mass graves [both those already exhumed and those still being discovered] in Peshtigo and the surrounding areas show that the death toll of the blaze was most likely greater than the 1889 Johnstown flood death toll of 2,200 people or more.Occurring on the same day as the more famous Great Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo fire has been largely forgotten, even though it killed far more people. In total, the Great Chicago Fire had taken one-fifth as many lives as the Peshtigo Fire. 'Everybody's heard about the Chicago fire, and that got all the publicity at the time,' said a volunteer at the Peshtigo Fire Museum, named Ruth Wiltzius, whose great-grandfather perished while trying to escape. 'Peshtigo was a backwards lumber town then -- who had ever heard of it? Chicago was the big city. Which one was going to get more attention?'Nonetheless, several cities in Michigan, including Holland and Manistee (across Lake Michigan from Peshtigo) and Port Huron (at the southern end of Lake Huron), also had major fires on the same day. These fires, along with many other fires of the nineteenth century had the same basic causes: small fires coupled with unusually dry weather.
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