What are the cataclysms. Data for Russia and Ukraine

Every year, various human activities and natural phenomena cause environmental disasters and economic losses around the world. But beyond the dark side, there is something admirable about the destructive power of nature.

This article will present you the most interesting natural phenomena and cataclysms that happened in 2011 and 2012, and at the same time remained not very well known to the public.

10. Sea smoke on the Black Sea, Romania.

Sea smoke is the evaporation of sea water, which is formed when the air is cold enough and the water is heated by the sun. Because of the temperature difference, the water begins to evaporate.

This beautiful photo was taken a few months ago in Romania by Dan Mihailescu.

9. Strange sounds coming from the frozen Black Sea, Ukraine.

If you've ever wondered what a frozen sea sounds like, here's the answer! Reminds me of scratching wood with nails.

The video was filmed on the coast of Odessa in Ukraine.

8. Trees in the web, Pakistan.

An unexpected side effect of the massive flood that inundated one-fifth of Pakistan's landmass is that millions of spiders escaped the water and climbed trees to form cocoons and huge webs.

7. Fire tornado - Brazil.

A rare phenomenon called "fire tornado" was caught on camera in Aracatuba, Brazil. A deadly cocktail of high temperatures, strong winds and fires formed a whirlwind of fire.

6. Cappuccino Coast, UK.

In December 2011, the seaside resort of Cleveleys, Lancashire was covered in cappuccino-colored sea foam (first photo). The second and third photos were taken in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to experts, sea foam is formed from molecules of fat and proteins created as a result of the decomposition of tiny sea creatures (Phaeocystis).

5. Snow in the desert, Namibia.

As you know, the Namibian Desert is the oldest desert on earth, and it would seem that, apart from sand and eternal heat, there can be nothing unusual here. However, judging by the statistics, it snows here almost every ten years.

The last time this happened was in June 2011, when snow fell between 11 am and 12 noon. On this day, the lowest temperature in Namibia was recorded -7 degrees Celsius.

4. Huge whirlpool, Japan.

An incredibly large whirlpool formed off the east coast of Japan after the sensational tsunami last year. Whirlpools are common in tsunamis, but such large ones are rare.

3. Waterspouts, Australia.

In May 2011, four tornado-like tornadoes formed off the coast of Australia, one of which reached a height of 600 meters.

Waterspouts usually start as tornadoes - above the ground, and then move to a body of water. Their size in height starts from a few meters, and the width varies up to a hundred meters.

It is noteworthy that local residents in this region have not seen such phenomena for more than 45 years.

2. Massive sandstorms, USA.

This incredible video shows the huge sandstorm that engulfed Phoenix in 2011. The cloud of dust grew up to 50 km wide and reached 3 km in height.

Sandstorms are a common meteorological event in Arizona, but researchers and locals unanimously declared that this storm was the largest in the history of the state.

1. Volcanic ash from Lake Nahuel Huapi - Argentina.

The massive eruption of the Puyehue volcano - near the city of Osorno, in southern Chile, has created an incredible spectacle in Argentina.

Northeast winds blew some of the ash onto Lake Nahuel Huapi. And its surface was covered with a thick layer of volcanic debris, which is very abrasive and does not dissolve in water.

By the way, Nahuel Huapi is the deepest and cleanest lake in Argentina. The lake stretches for 100 km along the Chilean border.

The depth reaches 400 meters, and its area is 529 square meters. km.

Today, the attention of the whole world is drawn to Chile, where a large-scale eruption of the Calbuco volcano began. The time has come to remember 7 biggest natural disasters recent years to know what the future might hold. Nature steps on people, as people used to step on nature.

Calbuco volcano eruption. Chile

Mount Calbuco in Chile is a fairly active volcano. However, its last eruption took place more than forty years ago - in 1972, and even then it lasted only one hour. But on April 22, 2015, everything changed for the worse. Calbuco literally exploded, starting the ejection of volcanic ash to a height of several kilometers.

On the Internet you can find great amount videos about this amazing beauty spectacle. However, it is pleasant to enjoy the view only through a computer, being thousands of kilometers from the scene. In reality, being near Calbuco is scary and deadly.

The Chilean government decided to resettle all people within a radius of 20 kilometers from the volcano. And this is only the first step. It is not yet known how long the eruption will last and what real damage it will bring. But it will definitely be a sum of several billion dollars.

Earthquake in Haiti

On January 12, 2010, Haiti suffered a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. There were several tremors, the main of which had a magnitude of 7. As a result, almost the entire country was in ruins. Even the presidential palace, one of the most majestic and capital buildings in Haiti, was destroyed.

According to official figures, more than 222,000 people died during and after the earthquake, and 311,000 were injured to varying degrees. At the same time, millions of Haitians were left homeless.

This is not to say that magnitude 7 is something unprecedented in the history of seismic observations. The scale of destruction turned out to be so huge due to the high deterioration of the infrastructure in Haiti, and also because of the extremely low quality of absolutely all buildings. In addition, the local population itself was in no hurry to provide first aid to the victims, as well as to participate in the removal of rubble and the restoration of the country.

As a result, an international military contingent was sent to Haiti, which took over the government in the first period after the earthquake, when the traditional authorities were paralyzed and extremely corrupt.

Tsunami in the Pacific Ocean

Until December 26, 2004, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Earth knew about the tsunami exclusively from textbooks and disaster films. However, that day will forever remain in the memory of Mankind because of the huge wave that covered the coast of dozens of states in the Indian Ocean.

It all started with a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1-9.3 that occurred just north of the island of Sumatra. It caused a giant wave up to 15 meters high, which spread in all directions of the ocean and meaning from the face of the Earth hundreds of settlements, as well as world-famous seaside resorts.

The tsunami covered coastal areas in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, South Africa, Madagascar, Kenya, Maldives, Seychelles, Oman and other states on the Indian Ocean. Statisticians counted more than 300 thousand dead in this disaster. At the same time, the bodies of many could not be found - the wave carried them into the open ocean.

The consequences of this disaster are enormous. In many places infrastructure was never fully restored after the 2004 tsunami.

Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption

The hard-to-pronounce Icelandic name Eyjafjallajokull became one of the most popular words in 2010. And all thanks to the volcanic eruption in the mountain range with this name.

Paradoxically, not a single person died during this eruption. But this natural disaster seriously disrupted business life throughout the world, primarily in Europe. After all, a huge amount of volcanic ash thrown into the sky from the Eyjafjallajökull vent completely paralyzed air traffic in the Old World. The natural disaster destabilized the lives of millions of people in Europe itself, as well as in North America.

Thousands of flights, both passenger and cargo, were cancelled. The daily losses of airlines during that period amounted to more than $200 million.

Earthquake in China's Sichuan province

As in the case of the earthquake in Haiti, a huge number of victims after a similar disaster in the Chinese province of Sichuan, which occurred there on May 12, 2008, is due to the low level of capital buildings.

As a result of the main quake of magnitude 8, as well as smaller concussions that followed it, more than 69 thousand people died in Sichuan, 18 thousand were missing, and 288 thousand were injured.

At the same time, the government of the People's Republic of China severely limited international assistance in the disaster zone, it tried to solve the problem with its own hands. According to experts, the Chinese thus wanted to hide the real extent of what happened.

For publishing real data about the dead and destruction, as well as for articles about corruption, which led to such huge numbers of losses, the PRC authorities even imprisoned the most famous contemporary Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, for several months.

Hurricane Katrina

However, the scale of the consequences of a natural disaster does not always directly depend on the quality of construction in a particular region, as well as on the presence or absence of corruption there. An example of this is Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Southeast coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico in late August 2005.

The main impact of Hurricane Katrina fell on the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. The rising water level in several places broke through the dam protecting New Orleans, and about 80 percent of the city was under water. At that moment, entire areas were destroyed, infrastructure facilities, transport interchanges and communications were destroyed.

The population who refused or did not have time to evacuate fled on the roofs of houses. The famous Superdom stadium became the main gathering place for people. But it turned into a trap at the same time, because it was already impossible to get out of it.

During the hurricane, 1,836 people died and more than a million were made homeless. The damage from this natural disaster is estimated at 125 billion dollars. At the same time, New Orleans has not been able to return to a full-fledged normal life in ten years - the city's population is still about a third less than in 2005.

March 11, 2011 in the Pacific Ocean east of the island of Honshu, shocks with a magnitude of 9-9.1 occurred, which led to the appearance of a huge tsunami wave up to 7 meters high. She hit Japan, washing away many coastal objects and going deep into the tens of kilometers.

In different parts of Japan, after the earthquake and tsunami, fires broke out, infrastructure, including industrial ones, was destroyed. In total, almost 16 thousand people died as a result of this disaster, and economic losses amounted to about 309 billion dollars.

But this turned out to be not the worst. The world knows about the 2011 disaster in Japan, primarily because of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which occurred as a result of the collapse of a tsunami wave on it.

More than four years have passed since this accident, but the operation at the nuclear power plant is still ongoing. And the settlements closest to it were permanently settled. So Japan got its own.

A large-scale natural disaster is one of the options for the death of our Civilization. We have collected .

This year, the word “anomalous” sounds almost in every weather forecast: some regions are suffocating in fires due to abnormal heat, others are choking from rains, and rivers threaten to burst their banks even in the Moscow region. What is happening on the planet? Scientists put forward more and more new explanations for the frequent cataclysms and unanimously declare: it will get worse further. But why?!

Chronicle: what is snow to me, what is heat to me ...

The climate began to surprise us at the beginning of March. After a relatively calm winter, an early spring suddenly came - in fact, three weeks faster than the calendar one.

March turned out to be unusually warm and sunny in almost the entire European territory of the country. However, then winter suddenly returned - with snow, ice and the whole arsenal of climatic disasters. March gave way to a cool April, and then an unusually cold and rainy May. According to the Hydrometeorological Center, record colds and frosts were observed throughout the entire space from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea and from the western border to the Urals until June, and the average monthly temperature in Central Russia was below the norm by 2 degrees.

Then the "May blizzard" hit Kaliningrad, in Syktyvkar, Kostroma and Pskov regions, people posted on the Internet photos of almost New Year's landscapes: green grass, sticky leaves on trees, barely blossomed flowers - and all this under the snow. In the Leningrad region, the temperature at night dropped to -8 °C. In Moscow, May generally turned out to be the frostiest in the 21st century, and Victory Day - the most "oak" in the history of the holiday. At the same time, beyond the Urals, the whole spring, on the contrary, turned out to be warmer than before.

June snowfall in Murmansk. Photo: www.globallookpress.com / instagram.com/narodnoe_tv/

But, alas, all this was only a prologue to the revelry of the elements. On May 29, a powerful hurricane hit Moscow with gusts of up to 30 m per second, which has never happened in the entire history of meteorological observations. This storm became the deadliest in Belokamennaya after the tornado of 1904: 18 people were killed, more than 170 were injured.

In late May - early June, destructive tornadoes and tornadoes swept through Tatarstan, Altai, the Urals - in the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, in Bashkiria (in Tatarstan - with freezing rain). Summer snow fell in Moscow and St. Petersburg on June 2. Under the blows of the elements, several regions located thousands of kilometers from each other turned out to be at once: in Siberia, the Volga region and the North Caucasus. Hurricanes and prolonged downpours were observed in Barnaul, Tolyatti, the Kurgan region, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, etc. Heavy rains and flooding in the Stavropol region have become the strongest over the past half century. In the capital, June 15 turned out to be the coldest in this century - only +9.4 °С. Four months - March, April, May and June - were marked in the capital by exceeding the monthly precipitation norms by more than 160-180%. But this record was also broken on June 30, when 85% of the monthly norm fell in Moscow. This has not happened for 95 years - since 1923. Meanwhile, "real northern summer" came to Murmansk and Severomorsk - on June 21, the temperature dropped sharply to 0 ° C, snowdrifts grew on the streets.

Residents of the central part of Russia can envy those who live in Southern Siberia: in Krasnoyarsk, Abakan, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, heat records set in May were continued in mid-June. It reached +34...+37 °C. And recently, in the steppe regions of the Crimea, the temperature reached +42 ... +43 ° С in the shade. It has been a terrible heat for a month now in a number of European countries, even worse in Central Asia - in Tashkent, for example, during the day it reaches +49 ° С.

In July, the number of weather anomalies and climatic disasters did not decrease. For the first three days of July, half of the monthly rainfall fell in Moscow - 47 mm. The Russian Emergencies Ministry has already warned that new natural disasters should be expected again in the near future. And scientists came up with new terms: “the weather is in a fever”, “the climate is in hysterics”.

Version number 1: getting colder due to warming

There are many hypotheses that try to explain what is the cause of anomalous climatic events. Among them are both scientific and those that are born in conversations on a bench at the entrance. But they are no less interesting.

According to meteorologists, global warming is to blame. Because of him, the climate has become unstable, unbalanced. But why does warming lead to cooling?

Global warming is going faster at the poles than at mid-latitudes, and even more so at the equator. Because of this, the temperature difference at the equator and at the poles is getting smaller. And the mechanism of atmospheric circulation is arranged in such a way that the greater this temperature difference, the more intensively the air masses move from west to east. It is to this - west-east - transfer that the inhabitants of Russia are accustomed. Cyclones coming to us from Europe then move towards the Ural Mountains.

“Due to the decrease in the temperature difference between the poles and the equator, this transfer, which is familiar to us, slowed down, but transfers along the meridians began to be observed more and more often - air masses move either from the north or from the south,” explains Director of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia Roman Vilfand. - It is the repetition of meridional processes that leads to the fact that more intense cooling occurs. In general, extreme events occur more often, very low and very high temperatures are observed. Paradox: during the period of warming, the intensity of cooling becomes greater than it was before global climate change. Our wonderful scientist academician Alexander Obukhov, said: "In a warming climate, the weather becomes nervous." That is, homogeneous weather becomes less. Such processes occur throughout the planet, but they are most noticeable in temperate latitudes.

So, frequent intrusions of cold Arctic air into the territory of Central Russia are caused by the fact that it is getting warmer in the Arctic itself. And global warming leads to the fact that some air masses are blocked by others for a long time. When in 2010 the inhabitants of the European part of Russia were suffocating for weeks from the smoke of peat fires, the drought and heat were caused precisely by the blocking anticyclone. But this can also happen with cold air masses, which apparently happened in May of this year.

“Besides, in May-June there was an increased cyclonic activity in the North Atlantic,” believes Head of the Laboratory of Climatology of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Semyonov. “Such an anomaly could be associated with strong changes in ocean temperature.”

Roman Vilfand warns: similar weather anomalies in our country are possible in the next 10 years.

Version number 2: scientists spoil the weather

When Europe was sweltering in the heat in 2010, many were quick to blame the cataclysm on physicists who were doing research at the Large Hadron Collider. This world's largest particle accelerator is located on the border of France and Switzerland. Suspicions that “scientists are spoiling the weather for us” are still heard, although the LHC has been stopped for repairs since the end of 2016.

Another scientific complex that is suspected of influencing the climate is located in Alaska. This is the American HAARP - a project to study the ionosphere and auroras. Talk about its ability to manipulate the weather on a planetary scale has been going on since its launch in 1997. Conspiracy theorists blame HAARP for earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes and floods. Similar installations, by the way, are in Norway, Russia (in the Nizhny Novgorod region), and Ukraine.

The launch of the Chinese satellite Mo Tzu, which was supposed to conduct an experiment on quantum teleportation, was also associated with weather anomalies. After the first successful sessions on the satellite, equipment malfunctions began. According to experts, they caused a sharp increase in the level of negative air ions, which could affect the climate.

Version #3: The sun goes out

Astronomers are alarmed: they have found a noticeable decrease in the activity of the Sun. In recent years, the level of magnetic activity of our luminary has decreased to record values, which indicates fundamental changes in its bowels, as well as the disastrous consequences of these processes for humanity. These conclusions were made by scientists from Birmingham (Great Britain).

Until recently, our star was in a state of great maximum, that is, increased activity. But in 2008 a new cycle began, which turned out to be surprisingly weak. Astronomers fear that the Sun has begun to fade.

One of the signs of the activity of the luminary is the presence of spots on its surface. And there are catastrophically few of them this year! The number of sunspots is gradually decreasing. The pictures show that the thickness of the layer where they are born is decreasing. In addition, the rotation of the star in its polar regions has slowed down.

According to scientists, a period of abnormal calm of the C-sun can lead to a prolonged cooling on our planet. It is also possible that the whims of weather observed now are the harbingers of a more formidable cataclysm.

Version #4: climate weapon

Climate weapons are prohibited by international conventions, but this does not mean that they are not being developed. And in some classifiers, weapons that can be called climate weapons are officially present. When a hurricane hit Moscow on May 29, resulting in human casualties and tearing off part of the roof from the Senate Palace in the Kremlin, the people murmured: the West used a secret technology that influenced the weather in Russia.

“Technologies similar to climate weapons are used when the clouds are dispersed for the holiday. By the way, this method of influencing the weather was developed just for military purposes, - says military scientist Andrei Shalygin. - And now there are many companies in the world that offer their services in "weather regulation". That is, experiments are being made on the climate, which no one controls! What is the risk? Yes, you can spray reagents around one city for a holiday, and this will change the weather in it, but in another region, a thousand kilometers away, this will backfire. Ways of provocation of natural phenomena are diverse. For example, you can spray chemical components on two cyclones going towards each other. And these components will react when combined, then a hurricane, much more powerful, will fall on the area. This way you can provoke not only hurricanes, but also showers, mudflows, floods, tornadoes, etc.”

They say that the Pentagon is paying increased attention to work in the field of climate change (the same HAARP complex in Alaska is under the control of the US military department). According to some reports, the Americans even planned to fight terrorists from ISIS (an organization banned in Russia. - Ed.), causing in the territory of their residence persistent dry winds, directed streams of hot wind with clouds of sand.

The advantages of climate weapons are obvious: how to prove that this or that natural disaster is caused artificially? And it is capable of inflicting colossal damage - affecting crop yields and agricultural production, which means provoking an economic downturn in the country and dissatisfaction with the authorities. To undermine the political situation and kindle the fire of the revolution is the business of political technologists.

The HAARP ionospheric research complex in Alaska is controlled by the US military. Photo: Public Domain

Version number 5: The Gulf Stream does not heat

AiF wrote about this hypothesis before. Moreover, he predicted that in the coming years it will start working and this will lead to a cooling in Europe.

We are talking about stopping the warm ocean current Gulf Stream, which heats the Old World. And thanks to the North Atlantic Current, which is its continuation, Murmansk remains an ice-free port.

The mechanism for stopping the Gulf Stream looks like this. As it moves northward, this powerful current meets the cold Labrador Current, which "dive" under it, pushing it towards Europe. This is because the water in the Labrador Current is saltier and heavier. The picture is similar to a two-level interchange - two powerful streams safely diverge.

Now let's see what happens due to global warming. Colossal masses of ice are melting in the Arctic - primarily the giant glacier of Greenland. And ice, as you know, is frozen fresh (not salty!) Water. Plus, the flow of Siberian rivers is increasing, which also carry fresh water into the ocean. As a result, the salinity of the water in the Arctic Ocean is decreasing. And since fresh water is lighter than salt water, it stops sinking and stops the warm Gulf Stream. In addition, the Labrador Current, also diluted with fresh water, becomes less dense and no longer “dives” under the Gulf Stream, but simply crashes into it. A two-level interchange turns into a banal intersection.

By the way, Europe has experienced many ice ages in its history. The last of them, known as the Little Ice Age, began in the 14th century. and, according to researchers, was caused precisely by the slowdown of the Gulf Stream.

Over the billions of years of existence of our planet, certain mechanisms have been formed on it by which nature works. Many of these mechanisms are subtle and harmless, while others are large-scale and bring great destruction with them. In this rating, we will talk about the 11 most destructive natural disasters on our planet, some of which can destroy thousands of people and an entire city in a few minutes.

11

A mudflow is a mud or mud-stone stream that suddenly forms in the beds of mountain rivers as a result of heavy rains, rapid melting of glaciers or seasonal snow cover. Deforestation in mountainous areas can be a decisive factor in the occurrence - the roots of trees hold the upper part of the soil, which prevents the occurrence of a mudflow. This phenomenon is short-term and usually lasts from 1 to 3 hours, typical for small streams up to 25-30 kilometers long. On their way, the streams cut deep channels, which are usually dry or contain small streams. The consequences of mudflows are catastrophic.

Imagine that a mass of earth, silt, stones, snow, sand, driven by a strong stream of water, fell on the city from the side of the mountains. This stream will be demolished at the foot of the city buildings along with people, and orchards. All this stream will break into the city, turn its streets into raging rivers with steep banks of destroyed houses. Houses break off their foundations and along with people they are carried away by a stormy stream.

10

A landslide is the sliding of masses of rocks down a slope under the influence of gravity, often while maintaining their connectedness and solidity. Landslides occur on the slopes of valleys or river banks, in the mountains, on the shores of the seas, the most grandiose at the bottom of the seas. The displacement of large masses of earth or rock along a slope is caused in most cases by wetting the soil with rainwater so that the mass of soil becomes heavy and more mobile. Such large landslides harm agricultural land, enterprises, and settlements. To combat landslides, bank protection structures and planting of vegetation are used.

Only fast landslides, the speed of which is several tens of kilometers, can cause real natural disasters with hundreds of casualties, when there is no time for evacuation. Imagine that huge pieces of soil are quickly moving down from the mountain directly onto a village or city, and buildings are destroyed under tons of this earth and people who have not had time to leave the place of the landslide are dying.

9

A sandstorm is an atmospheric phenomenon in the form of the transport of large amounts of dust, soil particles and grains of sand by wind several meters from the ground with a noticeable deterioration in horizontal visibility. At the same time, dust and sand rise into the air and at the same time dust settles over a large area. Depending on the color of the soil in a given region, distant objects take on a grayish, yellowish, or reddish hue. It usually occurs when the soil surface is dry and the wind speed is 10 m/s or more.

Most often, these catastrophic phenomena occur in the desert. A sure sign that a sandstorm is about to begin is a sudden silence. Rustles and sounds disappear with the wind. The desert literally freezes. A small cloud appears on the horizon, which quickly grows and turns into a black-purple cloud. The lost wind rises and very quickly reaches speeds of up to 150-200 km / h. A sandstorm can cover streets within a radius of several kilometers with sand and dust, but the main danger of sandstorms is wind and poor visibility, which causes car accidents in which dozens of people are injured, and some even die.

8

An avalanche is a mass of snow that falls or slides off a mountain slope. Snow avalanches pose a considerable danger, causing casualties among climbers, lovers of mountain skiing and snowboarding and causing significant damage to property. Sometimes snow avalanches have catastrophic consequences, destroying entire villages and causing the death of dozens of people. Snow avalanches, to one degree or another, are common in all mountainous regions. In winter, they are the main natural danger of the mountains.

Tones of snow are held on the tops of the mountains due to the force of friction. Large avalanches descend at the moment when the pressure force of the snow mass begins to exceed the force of friction. An avalanche is usually triggered by climatic causes: a sudden change in weather, rain, heavy snowfalls, as well as mechanical effects on the snow mass, including the impact of rockfalls, earthquakes, etc. Sometimes an avalanche can start due to a slight push like a gunshot or pressure on the snow of a man. The volume of snow in an avalanche can reach up to several million cubic meters. However, even avalanches with a volume of about 5 m³ can be life-threatening.

7

A volcanic eruption is the process of ejection by a volcano onto the earth's surface of incandescent fragments, ash, an outpouring of magma, which, having poured onto the surface, becomes lava. The strongest volcanic eruption can have a time period from several hours to many years. Incandescent clouds of ash and gases capable of moving at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour and rising hundreds of meters into the air. The volcano ejects gases, liquids and solids with high temperature. This often causes the destruction of buildings and the death of people. Lava and other red-hot eruptive substances flow down the slopes of the mountain and burn out everything they meet on their way, bringing innumerable victims and material losses that stagger the imagination. The only protection against volcanoes is a general evacuation, so the population must be familiar with the evacuation plan and unquestioningly obey the authorities if necessary.

It is worth noting that the danger from a volcanic eruption exists not only for the region around the mountain. Potentially, volcanoes threaten the life of all life on Earth, so you should not treat these hot guys with condescension. Almost all manifestations of volcanic activity are dangerous. It goes without saying that the danger of boiling lava is understandable. But no less terrible is the ash that literally penetrates everywhere in the form of a continuous gray-black snowfall that fills up streets, ponds, entire cities. Geophysicists claim to be capable of eruptions hundreds of times more powerful than have ever been observed. The largest volcanic eruptions, however, have already occurred on Earth - long before the advent of civilization.

6

A tornado or tornado is an atmospheric vortex that arises in a thundercloud and spreads down, often to the very surface of the earth, in the form of a cloud sleeve or trunk with a diameter of tens and hundreds of meters. Typically, the diameter of a tornado funnel on the ground is 300-400 meters, but if a tornado originated on the surface of the water, this value can be only 20-30 meters, and when the funnel passes over land, it can reach 1-3 kilometers. The largest number of tornadoes is recorded on the North American continent, especially in the central states of the United States. Every year, about a thousand tornadoes occur in the United States. The strongest tornado can last up to an hour or more. But most of them exist for no more than ten minutes.

On average, about 60 people die each year from tornadoes, mostly from flying or falling debris. However, it happens that huge tornadoes rush at a speed of about 100 kilometers per hour, destroying all buildings in their path. The maximum recorded wind speed in the largest tornado is about 500 kilometers per hour. During such tornadoes, the death toll can go into the hundreds, and the victims into the thousands, not to mention the material damage. The reasons for the formation of tornadoes have not been fully studied so far.

5

A hurricane or tropical cyclone is a type of low pressure weather system that occurs over a warm sea surface and is accompanied by severe thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, and gale force winds. The term "tropical" refers to both the geographical area and the formation of these cyclones in tropical air masses. It is generally accepted, according to the Beaufort scale, that a storm turns into a hurricane at a wind speed of more than 117 km / h. The strongest hurricanes can cause not only extreme downpours, but also large waves on the surface of the sea, storm surges and tornadoes. Tropical cyclones can form and maintain their strength only over the surface of large bodies of water, while over land they quickly lose strength.

A hurricane can cause downpours, tornadoes, small tsunamis and floods. A direct effect of tropical cyclones on land is storm winds that can destroy buildings, bridges, and other man-made structures. The strongest permanent winds within the cyclone exceed 70 meters per second. The worst effect of tropical cyclones in terms of casualties has historically been storm surge, that is, the rise in sea level due to the action of the cyclone, which on average results in about 90% of casualties. Over the past two centuries, tropical cyclones have killed 1.9 million people worldwide. In addition to the direct effect on residential buildings and economic facilities, tropical cyclones destroy infrastructure, including roads, bridges, power lines, causing enormous economic damage to the affected areas.

The most destructive and terrible hurricane in the history of the United States - Katrina, occurred at the end of August 2005. The most severe damage was caused to New Orleans in Louisiana, where about 80% of the city's area was under water. As a result of the natural disaster, 1,836 residents were killed and the economic damage amounted to $125 billion.

4

Flooding - flooding of the area as a result of rising water levels in rivers, lakes, seas due to rain, rapid snowmelt, wind surge of water on the coast and other causes, which damages people's health and even leads to their death, and also causes material damage . For example, in mid-January 2009 there was the largest flood in Brazil. More than 60 cities were affected then. About 13 thousand people left their homes, more than 800 people died. Floods and numerous landslides are caused by heavy rains.

Heavy monsoon rains have continued in Southeast Asia since mid-July 2001, causing landslides and flooding in the Mekong River region. As a result, Thailand experienced the worst floods in over half a century. Streams of water flooded villages, ancient temples, farms and factories. At least 280 people have died in Thailand, and another 200 in neighboring Cambodia. About 8.2 million people in 60 of Thailand's 77 provinces were affected by the floods, and economic losses are currently estimated to exceed $2 billion.

Drought is a long period of stable weather with high air temperatures and low rainfall, resulting in a decrease in soil moisture reserves and oppression and death of crops. The onset of a severe drought is usually associated with the establishment of an inactive high anticyclone. The abundance of solar heat and gradually decreasing air humidity create increased evaporation, and therefore soil moisture reserves are depleted without being replenished by rains. Gradually, as soil drought intensifies, ponds, rivers, lakes, springs dry up, and a hydrological drought begins.

For example, in Thailand, almost every year, severe floods alternate with severe droughts, when a state of emergency is declared in dozens of provinces, and several million people somehow feel the effects of the drought. As for the victims of this natural phenomenon, only in Africa from 1970 to 2010 the death toll from droughts is 1 million people.

2

Tsunamis are long waves generated by a powerful impact on the entire water column in the ocean or other body of water. Most tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes, during which there is a sharp displacement of the seabed. Tsunamis are formed during an earthquake of any magnitude, but those that arise due to strong earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 on the Richter scale reach a large force. As a result of an earthquake, several waves propagate. More than 80% of tsunamis occur on the periphery of the Pacific Ocean. The first scientific description of the phenomenon was given by Jose de Acosta in 1586 in Lima, Peru, after a powerful earthquake, then a strong tsunami 25 meters high burst onto land at a distance of 10 km.

The largest tsunamis in the world occurred in 2004 and 2011. So, on December 26, 2004 at 00:58 there was a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 9.3 - the second most powerful of all recorded, which caused the deadliest of all known tsunamis. The tsunami affected the countries of Asia and African Somalia. The total number of deaths exceeded 235 thousand people. The second tsunami happened on March 11, 2011 in Japan after a strong earthquake of magnitude 9.0 with an epicenter caused a tsunami with a wave height exceeding 40 meters. In addition, the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami caused the Fukushima I nuclear accident. injured.

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An earthquake is the tremors and vibrations of the Earth's surface caused by natural causes. Small shocks can also be caused by the rise of lava during volcanic eruptions. About a million earthquakes occur every year all over the Earth, but most of them are so small that they go unnoticed. The most powerful earthquakes, capable of causing widespread destruction, occur on the planet about once every two weeks. Most of them fall on the bottom of the oceans, and therefore are not accompanied by catastrophic consequences if the earthquake does without a tsunami.

Earthquakes are best known for the devastation they can cause. The destruction of buildings and structures is caused by ground vibrations or giant tidal waves (tsunamis) that occur during seismic displacements on the seabed. A powerful earthquake begins with the rupture and movement of rocks in some place deep in the Earth. This place is called the earthquake focus or hypocenter. Its depth is usually no more than 100 km, but sometimes it reaches up to 700 km. Sometimes the focus of an earthquake can be near the surface of the Earth. In such cases, if the earthquake is strong, bridges, roads, houses and other structures are torn and destroyed.

The largest natural disaster is considered to be an earthquake of magnitude 8.2 on July 28, 1976 in the Chinese city of Tangshan, Hebei province. According to official data from the Chinese authorities, the death toll was 242,419 people, however, according to some estimates, the death toll reaches 800,000 people. At 3:42 local time, the city was destroyed by a strong earthquake. Destruction also took place in Tianjin and in Beijing, located just 140 km to the west. As a result of the earthquake, about 5.3 million houses were destroyed or damaged so much that it was impossible to live in them. Several aftershocks, the strongest of which had a magnitude of 7.1, led to even more casualties. The Tangshan earthquake is the second largest earthquake in history after the most devastating Shaanxi earthquake in 1556. Then about 830 thousand people died.

Man has long considered himself the “crown of nature”, vainly believing in his superiority and treating the environment in accordance with his status, which he himself appropriated. However, nature proves every time that human judgments are wrong, and thousands of victims of natural disasters make us think about the real place of homo sapiens on planet Earth.
1 place. Earthquake

Earthquakes are tremors and vibrations of the earth's surface that occur when tectonic plates shift. Dozens of earthquakes occur every day in the world, but, fortunately, only a few of them cause large-scale destruction. The most destructive earthquake in history occurred in 1556 in the Chinese province of Xi'an. Then 830 thousand people died. For comparison: 12.5 thousand people became victims of an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 in Japan in 2011.

2nd place. Tsunami

Tsunami is a Japanese term for an unusually high ocean wave. Tsunamis most often occur in areas of high seismic activity. According to statistics, it is the tsunami that leads to the greatest number of human casualties. The highest wave was recorded in 1971 in Japan near the island of Ishigaki: it reached 85 meters at a speed of 700 km / h. And the tsunami caused by an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia claimed the lives of 250 thousand people.

3rd place. Drought

Drought is a prolonged absence of precipitation, most often at elevated temperatures and low humidity. One of the most destructive was the drought in the Sahel (Africa) - a semi-desert that separates the Sahara from fertile lands. The drought there lasted from 1968 to 1973 and claimed the lives of about 250 thousand people.

4th place. Flood

Flooding - a significant rise in the water level in rivers or lakes as a result of heavy rains, melting ice, etc. One of the most devastating floods occurred in Pakistan in 2010. Then more than 800 people died, more than 20 million inhabitants of the country, who were left without shelter and food, suffered from the elements.

5th place. Landslides

A landslide is a stream of water, mud, stones, trees and other debris that occurs mainly in mountainous areas due to prolonged rains. The largest number of victims was recorded during a landslide in China in 1920, which claimed the lives of 180 thousand people.

6th place. Eruption

Volcanism is a set of processes associated with the movement of magma in the mantle, upper layers of the earth's crust and on the surface of the earth. Currently, there are about 500 active volcanoes, and about 1000 dormant ones. The largest eruption occurred in 1815. Then the awakened volcano Tambora was heard at a distance of 1250 km. Directly from the eruption, and then from starvation, 92 thousand people died. Two days at a distance of 600 km. because of the volcanic dust there was pitch darkness, and 1816 was called by Europe and America "the year without summer."

7th place. Avalanche

Avalanche - the overthrow of the snow mass from the mountain slopes, most often caused by prolonged snowfalls and the growth of a snow cap. Most people died from avalanches during the First World War. Then about 80 thousand people died from volleys of artillery pieces, causing avalanches.

8th place. Hurricane

A hurricane (tropical cyclone, typhoon) is an atmospheric phenomenon characterized by low pressure and strong winds. Hurricane Katrina, which hit the US coast in August 2005, is considered the most destructive. The states of New Orleans and Louisiana were the most affected, where 80% of the territory was flooded. 1836 people died, the damage amounted to 125 billion dollars.

9th place. Tornado

A tornado is an atmospheric vortex that stretches from the parent thundercloud to the ground itself in the form of a long sleeve. The speed inside it can reach up to 1300 km / h. Basically, tornadoes threaten the central part of North America. So, in the spring of 2011, a series of devastating tornadoes passed through this country, which were called one of the most catastrophic in US history. The largest death toll was recorded in the state of Alabama - 238 people. In total, the elements claimed the lives of 329 people.

10th place. Sandstorm

A sandstorm is a strong wind capable of lifting the top layer of earth and sand (up to 25 cm) into the air and transporting it over long distances in the form of dust particles. There are known cases of people dying from this scourge: in 525 BC. in the Sahara, due to a sandstorm, the 50,000th army of the Persian king Cambyses died.

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