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 may 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 a huge number of videos about this amazingly beautiful sight. 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 hundreds of settlements from the face of the Earth, 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 the publication of real data on the dead and destruction, as well as 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 there were shocks with a magnitude of 9-9.1, 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 .

Sometimes it is rather difficult to assess the scale of a particular global catastrophe, because the consequences of some of them can manifest themselves many years after the incident itself.

In this article, we will present the 10 worst disasters in the world that were not caused by purposeful actions. Among them are incidents that occurred on the water, in the air, and on the ground.

Fukushima accident

The catastrophe that occurred on March 11, 2011, simultaneously combines the features of man-made and natural disasters. A massive magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a tsunami caused the Daiichi nuclear plant's power supply to fail, shutting down the cooling process for the nuclear fuel reactors.

In addition to the monstrous destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami, this incident led to serious radioactive contamination of the territory and water area. In addition, the Japanese authorities had to evacuate more than two hundred thousand people because of the high likelihood of serious illness due to exposure to severe radioactive exposure. The combination of all these consequences gives the Fukushima accident the right to be called one of the worst disasters in the world in the twenty-first century.

The total damage from the accident is estimated at $100 billion. This amount includes the costs of eliminating the consequences and paying compensation. But at the same time, we must not forget that work to eliminate the consequences of the disaster is still ongoing, which accordingly increases this amount.

In 2013, the Fukushima nuclear power plant was officially closed, and only works to eliminate the consequences of the accident are being carried out on its territory. Experts believe that it will take at least forty years to put the building and the contaminated area in order.

The consequences of the Fukushima accident are a reassessment of safety measures in nuclear energy, a fall in the cost of natural uranium, and, accordingly, a decrease in share prices of uranium mining companies.

Collision at Los Rodeos Airport

Possibly the biggest plane crash in the world occurred in the Canary Islands (Tenerife) in 1977. At Los Rodeos Airport, two Boeing 747 airliners owned by KLM and Pan American collided on the runway. As a result, 583 out of 644 people died, including both passengers and crew of airliners.

One of the main reasons for this situation was the terrorist attack at Las Palmas airport, which was staged by terrorists from the MPAIAC organization (Movimiento por la Autodeterminación e Independencia del Archipiélago Canario). The attack itself did not cause any casualties, but the airport authorities closed the airport and stopped accepting planes, fearing repeated incidents.

Because of this, Los Rodeos was overloaded, as planes were sent to it, which followed in Las Palmas, in particular two Boeing 747 flights PA1736 and KL4805. At the same time, it should be noted that the aircraft owned by Pan

American, had enough fuel to land at another airport, but the pilots obeyed the controller's order.

The collision itself was caused by fog, which severely limited visibility, as well as communication difficulties between controllers and pilots, which were caused by the heavy accent of the controllers, and the fact that the pilots constantly interrupted each other.

Collision of Doña Paz with tanker Vector

On December 20, 1987, the Philippine-registered passenger ferry Doña Paz collided with the oil tanker Vector, resulting in the world's worst peacetime water disaster.

At the time of the collision, the ferry was following its standard Manila-Catbalogan route, which it operated twice a week. On December 20, 1987, around 06:30, the Doña Paz left Tacloban and headed for Manila. At about 10:30 p.m., the ferry passed through the Strait of Tablas near Marinduque, according to surviving eyewitnesses, the weather was clear, but with rough seas.

The collision occurred after the passengers fell asleep, the ferry collided with the tanker "Vector", which was transporting gasoline and oil products. Immediately after the collision, a strong fire broke out due to the fact that oil products spilled into the sea. A strong blow and a fire almost instantly caused panic among the passengers, in addition, according to the survivors, the ferry did not have the required number of life jackets.

Only 26 people survived, of which 24 were passengers from Doña Paz and two people from the Vector tanker.

Mass poisoning in Iraq 1971

At the end of 1971, a consignment of grain treated with methylmercury was imported to Iraq from Mexico. Of course, the grain was not intended for processing into food, and was to be used only for planting. Unfortunately, the local population did not know Spanish, and accordingly all the warning signs that said "Do not eat."

It should also be noted that the grain was delivered to Iraq late, as the planting season had already passed. All this led to the fact that in some villages the grain treated with methylmercury began to be eaten.

After eating this grain, symptoms such as numbness of the limbs, loss of vision, and impaired coordination were observed. As a result of criminal negligence, about one hundred thousand people received mercury poisoning, of which about six thousand died.

This incident led the World Health Organization to take a closer look at the circulation of grain, and began to take the labeling of potentially dangerous products more seriously.

Mass destruction of sparrows in China

Although we do not include human-caused disasters on our list, this case is an exception, because it is caused by banal stupidity and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Nevertheless, this case fully deserves the title of one of the most terrible catastrophes in the world.

As part of the economic policy of the "Great Leap Forward", a large-scale pest control was carried out, among which the Chinese authorities singled out the four most terrible - mosquitoes, rats, flies and sparrows.

Employees of the Chinese Research Institute of Zoology calculated that due to sparrows during the year, the volume of grain was lost, with which it would be possible to feed about thirty-five million people. Based on this, a plan was developed to exterminate these birds, which was approved by Mao Zedong on March 18, 1958.

All peasants actively began to hunt birds. The most effective method was to keep them from sinking to the ground. To do this, adults and children shouted, beat in basins, waved poles, rags, etc. This made it possible to frighten the sparrows and prevent them from landing on the ground for fifteen minutes. As a result, the birds just dropped dead.

After a year of sparrow hunting, the harvest really increased. However, later caterpillars, locusts, and other pests that ate the shoots began to actively breed. This led to the fact that a year later, crops fell sharply, and famine set in, which led to the deaths of 10 to 30 million people.

Piper Alpha oil rig disaster

The Piper Alpha platform was built in 1975, and oil production on it started in 1976. Over time, it was converted for gas production. However, on July 6, 1988, there was a gas leak that caused an explosion.

Due to the indecisive and ill-considered actions of the personnel, 167 people died out of 226 who were on the platform.

Of course, after this event, oil and gas production on this platform was completely stopped. Insured losses amounted to about US$3.4 billion. This is one of the most famous disasters in the world associated with the oil industry.

The death of the Aral Sea

This incident is the biggest environmental disaster in the former Soviet Union. Once the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake, after the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior in North America, Lake Victoria in Africa. Now in its place is the Aralkum desert.

The reason for the disappearance of the Aral Sea is the creation of new irrigation channels for agricultural enterprises in Turkmenistan, which took water from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers. Because of this, the lake has strongly receded from the shore, which led to the exposure of the bottom covered with sea salt, pesticides and chemicals.

Due to the natural evaporation of the Aral Sea during the period from 1960 to 2007, the sea lost about a thousand cubic kilometers of water. In 1989, the reservoir split into two parts, and in 2003, the volume of water was about 10% of the original.

The result of this incident was serious changes in climate and landscape. In addition, out of 178 species of vertebrates that lived in the Aral Sea, only 38 remained;

Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform on April 20, 2010 is considered one of the largest man-made disasters in terms of negative impact on the environment. Directly from the explosion, 11 people died and 17 were injured. Two more people died during the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster.

Due to the fact that pipes were damaged from the explosion at a depth of 1500 meters, in 152 days approximately five million barrels of oil spilled into the sea, which created a slick with an area of ​​​​75 thousand kilometers, in addition, 1770 kilometers of the coast were polluted.

The oil spill endangered 400 animal species and also led to a ban on fishing

Eruption of Mont Pelee volcano

On May 8, 1902, one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions in human history occurred. This incident led to the emergence of a new classification of volcanic eruptions, and changed the attitude of many scientists to volcanology.

The volcano woke up in April 1902, and within a month hot vapors and gases, as well as lava, accumulated inside. A month later, a huge grayish cloud erupted at the foot of the volcano. A feature of this eruption is that the lava came out not from the top, but from side craters that were located on the slopes. As a result of a powerful explosion, one of the main ports of the island of Martinique, the city of Saint-Pierre, was completely destroyed. The disaster claimed the lives of thirty thousand people.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis

This disaster unfolded as follows:

• Cyclone Nargis formed on April 27, 2008, in the Bay of Bengal, and initially moved towards the coast of India, in a northwesterly direction;
• On April 28, it stops moving, but the speed of the wind in spiral eddies began to increase significantly. Because of this, the cyclone began to be classified as a hurricane;
• On April 29, the wind speed reached 160 kilometers per hour, and the cyclone resumed movement, but already in a northeasterly direction;
• On May 1, the direction of the wind movement changed to the east, and at the same time the wind was constantly increasing;
• On May 2, the wind speed reached 215 kilometers per hour, and at noon it reaches the coast of the Myanmar province of Ayeyarwaddy.

According to the UN, as a result of the violence of the elements, 1.5 million people were affected, of which 90,000 died and 56,000 went missing. In addition, the large city of Yangon was seriously damaged, and many settlements were completely destroyed. Part of the country was left without telephone, Internet and electricity. The streets were littered with debris, debris from buildings and trees.

To eliminate the consequences of this catastrophe, the combined forces of many countries of the world and such international organizations as the UN, EU, UNESCO were needed.

August 14, 2008 10:05 am

The tragedies of the 20th century - there are hundreds of them ... Mountains of corpses, blood, pain and suffering - that's what revolutions, world wars, political upheavals and monstrous incidents brought with them. And all of them, as a rule, are carefully photographed and recorded...

And this terrible list is opened by photos from the board of the infamous Titanic...

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THE TRAGEDY OF THE TITANIC. More than eighty years have passed since the moment when, on a frosty night from April 14 to 15, 1912, south of the island of Newfoundland, the giant Titanic, the largest and most luxurious ship of the beginning of the century, sank, colliding with a drifting iceberg. 1,500 passengers and crew were killed. And although there were enough terrible tragedies in the 20th century, interest in the fate of this ship does not weaken even today. Before you is a rather rare photograph of the ship three days before sailing ...


Unfortunately, we will have to come to terms with the fact that the exhaustive truth about the death of the Titanic will never be known. Despite two investigations carried out immediately after the floating palace was swallowed up by the waves, many details remained unclear. The ship sets off on its fateful voyage...


As soon as Captain Smith was informed that the last ladder had been removed and secured, the pilot set to work. On the pier, they gave the mooring lines that fastened the bow and stern to powerful coastal bollards. Then the tugs set to work. The long hull of the Titanic, centimeter by centimeter, began to move away from the pier ... A retouched photograph of the departure of the Titanic ...


Hundreds of passengers on the promenade decks of the Titanic and thousands of people on the shore watched the complex maneuvers of sailing. Seeing off...


And then something happened that could have ended very sadly. The steamer New York was in the harbor. At the moment when the Titanic passed by, the bows of both ships were on the same line, the six steel cables with which the New York was moored stretched and there was a strong crack, similar to shots from a revolver, and the ends of the cables whistled in the air and fell on the embankment into a frightened, fleeing crowd ...


Of course, there are no photographs of the sinking Titanic. But. There are quite a few pictures taken from the rescue ship "Carpathia". More than 100 people managed to get on board - all those who survived on five boats ... "Carpathia" ...


Iceberg Killer...


Boat No. 12 is one of those that managed to reach the side of the "Carpathia" ...


Rescued. Aboard the Carpathia...


Newspapers. Terrible news...


HOLODOMOR. This terrible word is used to refer to the mass death of the population of the Ukrainian SSR from starvation in 1932-1933... In the USSR, the scale of the tragedy and its true causes were simply hidden... But witnesses recall that the streets of cities and villages were littered with corpses of the dead, people's hunger...


At present, there is a point of view in the scientific community, according to which the mass death of the population of Ukraine was caused by the conscious and purposeful actions of the Soviet leadership...


During these terrible years, at least 4,500,000 people died in Ukraine...


Corpses were everywhere...


Hospitals and morgues failed to cope with their duties ...


Improvised cemeteries stretched for tens of kilometers on the outskirts of the city ...


Foreign journalists took photographs out of Ukraine at the risk of their own lives. And yet, something leaked to the press ...

THE LAST AIRSHIP Crash. On May 6, 1937, the German aircraft Gidenburg exploded and burned down - at that time the world's largest airship, the length of which was about 248 m, the diameter was more than 40 m. It was built in the 30s as a symbol of the new Nazi Germany ... Photo of that time from the archive of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" ..


He could fly 15 thousand km at a maximum speed of 135 km / h. On two floors of the passenger compartment there were 26 double cabins, bars, a reading room, a restaurant, galleries, kitchens. The ticket cost over $800. "Gidenburg" was destroyed by fire while approaching the mooring mast in Lakehurst (New Jersey, USA), completing the flight from Frankfurt (Germany) ...


32 seconds after the explosion, the airship, more than 2 times the length of a football field, resembled a fantastic charred skeleton made of curved metal. This catastrophe claimed 36 human lives...


The explosion was heard fifteen miles away. Thanks to the courage and self-control of the captain, the crew and 62 passengers were saved. The fire was directly linked to the use of hydrogen, the only carrier gas that Germany had available, since the US refused to supply helium in commercial quantities. There was another version of the attack - in the early 1970s, information appeared that the enemy of the Nazis, Erich Spel, one of the members of the team, had planted an hour mine ...


PEARL HARBOR. The most famous US naval base in the Hawaiian Islands. On December 7, 1941, during World War II, Japanese carrier-based aircraft launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and disabled the main forces of the American Pacific Fleet. On December 8, the United States and Great Britain declared war on Japan...


The sun rose over Pearl Harbor that day in all its usual tropical brilliance. It was Sunday and the fleet was "at home". The officers and sailors were thinking about the upcoming day of rest. As always on Sundays, the wake-up call was given late. At that moment, when the sounds of the bugle died away, unknown planes appeared in the sky. Without any delay they began dropping bombs and torpedoes...


50 bombers, 40 torpedo bombers and 81 dive bombers attacked Pacific Fleet ships anchored in Pearl Harbor...


When the last Japanese planes left, it turned out that the losses of the navy and marine corps were 2835 people, of which 2086 officers and enlisted men were killed or mortally wounded. The losses of the army amounted to 600 people, of which 194 were killed and 364 were wounded. In addition to damage to ships and hangars, 92 aircraft of the navy were destroyed and 31 aircraft were damaged, while the army lost 96 aircraft ...

HIROSHIMA - REVENGE FOR PEARL HARBOR? The Great Patriotic War ended on May 9, 1945. But the war didn't end there. It lasted until September 2, 1945. And there were fights. And there were victories. And there were victims. And there were tragedies. And the most terrible of them is the atomic bombing of Japanese cities ...

The area of ​​the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 was about 26 square meters. miles, of which only 7 were completely built up. There were no explicitly designated commercial, industrial, and residential areas. 75% of the population lived in a densely built-up area in the city center...

The commander of the air regiment, Colonel Tibets, gave his aircraft the name "Enola Gay" - in honor of his mother. The case of the atomic bomb, located in the Enola Gay's bomb bay, was covered with a lot of both joking and serious slogans. Among them was the inscription "from the guys from" Indianapolis "...

On August 6, at about 8 o'clock in the morning, two B-29 bombers appeared over Hiroshima. People continued to work without entering the shelter, and looked at enemy aircraft. When the bombers reached the city center, one of them dropped a small parachute, after which the planes flew away. At 8:15 a.m., there was a deafening explosion that seemed to rip apart heaven and earth in an instant...

A blinding flash and a terrible roar of explosion - after which the whole city was covered with huge clouds of smoke. Among the smoke, dust and debris, wooden houses flared up one after another, until the end of the day the city was enveloped in smoke and flames. And when, finally, the flame subsided, the whole city was one ruin. Charred and burnt corpses were piled up everywhere, many of them frozen in the position in which the explosion found them. The tram, from which there was only one skeleton, was packed with corpses, holding on to the belts ...


A single bomb, with a capacity of 20 thousand tons of TNT, exploded at an altitude of 600 meters above the city, in an instant destroyed 60 percent of the city to the ground. Of the 306,545 inhabitants of Hiroshima, 176,987 were affected by the explosion. 92,133 people were killed or missing, 9,428 were seriously injured and 27,997 were slightly injured. In an effort to reduce their responsibility, the Americans, as far as possible, underestimated the number of victims - when calculating losses, the number of killed and wounded military personnel was not taken into account. Many died from radiation sickness. There was nothing left of those who were near the epicenter - the explosion literally evaporated people ...


Auschwitz - 40 HA OF DEATH. The largest extermination camp, it was called the death factory, the death conveyor, the death machine. In fact, in Polish Silesia, on several thousand hectares, the most monstrous state in the world was built with a population of several million people, of which less than three thousand survived, with its own system of values, economy, government, hierarchy, rulers, executioners, victims and heroes. The inscription above the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp read: "Work makes you free." Entrance to Hell...


"You were brought here not to a sanatorium, but to a German concentration camp. Remember, there is only one way out of here - through the crematorium's chimney." So through the loudspeakers the voice of the deputy commandant Frach was broadcasting ...


The engineers were given the task: we need a crematorium, because otherwise there would be too many problems with the bodies of the dead. Engineers calculated: three furnaces, coal, loading 24 hours a day. They gave the answer: you can burn 340 people. The bosses thanked the engineers, but set a new task - to increase production capacity ...

Two tons of human hair - this is what they did not have time to use. The camp supplied them at 50 pfennigs per kilogram. The industrialists took it willingly - they got an inexpensive durable fabric and ropes ...


Gold horns from glasses were neatly folded in a special room ...


The central entrance... People were brought in wagons...

Up to six people slept on the bunks. During the winter, many were incontinent. And all this flowed from the upper bunk to the lower. Going to the toilet at night was a nightmare. The guards beat people because they had instructions: the latrine must be clean...


At the same time, the Germans experimented with gas. It was fed through holes in the ceiling. People didn't know where they were going. They were told that for sanitation. The SS men checked whether the prisoners were alive or not. They took a nail and poked it into the body… The road to the gas chamber…


"Cyclone-B"...


The anger was taken out on the Russians. There were twelve thousand of them, maybe sixty people remained. For example, they had such a punishment: in the barracks, the doors were opened from one side and the other, but it was winter, and the prisoners had to stand naked. The guards also poured cold water on them from a hose...


They prepared soup for the prisoners, of course, without fat and meat. When they carried a full cauldron, the stew spilled. People licked the ground if a drop fell. The SS men also beat for this ...

Toddlers show hands with numbers...


Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. There were less than seven thousand people left. The Germans destroyed all five crematoria, gas chambers, and most of the prisoners were taken out. Those who remained said themselves: we are no longer people after what we experienced here ...


DEATH OF GOEBBELS. During the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the main ideologist of fascism, Joseph Goebbels, took poison, having previously poisoned his family - his wife and six children. The corpses, according to his dying order, were burned. Before you is a photograph depicting the corpse of a criminal. The shot was taken in the building of the Imperial Chancellery on May 2, 1945 by Major Vasily Krupennikov. On the back of the picture, Vasily wrote: “We covered the causal place of Goebbels with a handkerchief, it was very unpleasant to look at it” ...


TSAR-BOMB, "IVAN", "KUZKINA'S MOTHER". A thermonuclear device developed in the USSR in the mid-1950s by a group of physicists led by Academician I. V. Kurchatov


The development team included Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Trunov and Yuri Smirnov.


The original version of the bomb weighing 40 tons was rejected by the designers as too heavy. Then the nuclear scientists promised to reduce its mass to 20 tons, and the aircraft builders proposed a program for the appropriate modification of the Tu-16 and Tu-95 bombers. The new nuclear device, according to the tradition adopted in the USSR, received the code designation "Vanya" or "Ivan", and the Tu-95 chosen as the carrier was named Tu-95V.


The results of the explosion of the charge, which received the name Tsar Bomba in the West, were impressive - the nuclear "mushroom" of the explosion rose to a height of 64 kilometers, the shock wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times, and the ionization of the atmosphere caused radio interference for hundreds of kilometers from the landfill within one hour ...


The test of the most powerful thermonuclear device in the world took place on October 30, 1961, during the work of the XXII Congress of the CPSU. The explosion of the bomb occurred within the nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya at an altitude of 4500 meters. The power of the explosion was about 50 megatons of TNT. No casualties or damage have been officially reported...


THE MURDER OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY. The tragedy happened on November 22, 1963, on Friday..

The number of proposed clues to this incident is steadily moving towards infinity. What is known for certain?

On November 22, the president, along with his wife and Texas Governor John Connally, drove from the Dallas airport to downtown. More than 200,000 people greeted the President on the way of the cortege through the business district of the city. At some point, the car braked, and that's when shots rang out.


The bullets hit John F. Kennedy in the head and throat. The president fell into his wife's arms, and the next shot was severely wounded in the back by the governor of Texas.


This 40-second recording, made on a simple video camera by someone from Dallas, became the most famous recording in the world. Immediately after the shots were fired, the car rushed to the clinic, where 14 surgeons fought for Kennedy's life ...

...but despite their best efforts, he passed away 35 minutes later...
45 minutes after the assassination attempt, the suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was apprehended. But he was also mysteriously killed - after 2 days he was put to death by the owner of the nightclub Jack Ruby. Well, the new president of the country was US Vice President Lyndon Johnson. By the way, he was traveling in another car of the same motorcade ...


The VIETNAM WAR began in August 1964 with an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, during which coast guard vessels of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam fired on American destroyers that provided fire support to government forces in South Vietnam in their fight against guerrillas ...

For the defense of South Vietnam, the United States deployed an army of half a million across the ocean, equipped with all types of modern weapons, except nuclear ...


American soldiers fought fiercely in the impenetrable jungle against the pro-communist guerrillas (Viet Cong) ...

On vast areas, they destroyed dense foliage with pesticides that hid an elusive enemy, mercilessly bombed partisan areas and the territory of North Vietnam - all in vain ...


Subsequently, hostilities covered the territory not only of Vietnam itself, but also of neighboring Laos and Cambodia ...


50,000 Americans died; Vietnamese were killed many times more. By the beginning of 1968, the war reached a stalemate, in May 1968 peace negotiations began, which lasted more than four years ... On January 27, 1973, the US administration signed an agreement on the conditions for the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The war, which the United States thought was a cakewalk, turned out to be America's nightmare. The post-war crisis continued in the United States for more than 10 years. It is difficult to say how it would have ended if the Afghan crisis had not come under the arm ...
In the second half of the 20th century, mankind learned two terrible phrases - "world terrorism" and "technogenic catastrophe" ... Starting from the 60s of the last century, spaceports and factories, trains and planes, houses and nuclear reactors explode one after another in this world ...

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BAIKONUR, OCTOBER 24, 1960. "The Nedelin catastrophe". The explosion of the R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile during tests at the spaceport ...


More than 90 people died in the explosion and the resulting fire, including the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces ... According to unofficial data, there were 165 of them ...


Designer Academician M.K. Yangel, who was absent for a short time before the start, miraculously survived ...


The disaster was classified until the end of the 90s ...


However, much less tragic events were then classified. Interestingly, to this day there are rumors in Baikonur that the Soviet Union sent people into space even before Gagarin. But since these attempts ended in the death of the astronauts, they were kept secret ...


And the monument to the dead turned out to be very modest ...


BLOODY TUESDAY IN MUNICH. On September 5, 1972, at the 20th Olympiad, the most monstrous tragedy in the history of sports occurred. At 3:30 in the morning, 8 heavily armed terrorists belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization Black September broke into one of the houses of the Olympic Village. They managed to take 11 members of the Israeli sports delegation hostage. The security of the Olympic Village simply did not notice the terrorists ...

After climbing over the metal mesh that encloses the athletes' dormitory, the terrorists unpack their weapons and enter entrance No. 1 of house 31. A few seconds later they persistently knock on the door of the room in which the Israeli classical wrestling referee Yosef Gutfreind is located. Gutfreind is famous for his heroic physique and the strength of Hercules. Seeing suspicious people, he leans on the door with his whole body and detains the criminals for a few seconds...


One of the terrorists orders one of the hostages to show the rooms where the rest of the Israelis live. He refuses, and the terrorist fires a burst of Kalashnikov at him. In doing so, he saves the lives of shooters, fencers, race walkers and swimmers...

Still, 12 Israelis were captured by the terrorists. Demands were put forward - the immediate release of 234 terrorists from Israeli prisons and 16 from prisons in Western Europe ... Negotiations were conducted until late in the evening ...


The bodies of all eleven dead athletes were sent to Israel. During the unsuccessful operation, two German citizens also died: a policeman and a pilot of one of the helicopters. In the homeland of those killed in the mourning ceremony, in addition to relatives, the head of the government Golda Meir, all ministers, Knesset deputies, members of the sports delegation who left the Olympics, thousands of Israeli citizens took part ...


CHERNOBYL DISASTER. On April 26, 1986, 187 control and protection system rods entered the core to shut down the reactor. The chain reaction had to be broken. However, after 3 seconds, the appearance of alarms for exceeding the power of the reactor and increasing pressure was registered. And after 4 seconds - a deaf explosion that shook the entire building. The emergency protection rods stopped before they had gone halfway...


From the roof of the fourth power unit, as if from the mouth of a volcano, sparkling clots began to fly out. They went up high. It was like fireworks. The clots scattered into multi-colored sparks and fell in different places...

The black fireball soared up, forming a cloud that stretched horizontally into a black cloud and went to the side, sowing death, disease and misfortune in the form of small, small drops ..


And at that time people were still working inside. There is no roof, part of the wall is destroyed ... The lights went out, the phone turned off. Coverings are crumbling. Paul is trembling. The rooms are filled with either steam, or fog, dust. Short circuit sparks flash. Radiation control devices go off scale. Hot radioactive water flows everywhere...

After the largest man-made disaster in world history, such pine trees were born in the Zone ...

...such animals...

...and these kids...

These photos were taken for one of the secret reports to the Central Committee of the Politburo of the USSR...


Now almost all the houses in the Zone look like this...


THE 1988 EARTHQUAKE DESTROYED THE CITY OF SPITAK. Also in Armenia, the cities of Leninakan, Stepanavan, Kirovakan were destroyed. 58 villages in the north-west of the republic were turned into ruins, almost 400 villages were partially destroyed.


450 mine rescuers arrived in Armenia from the fraternal union republics. 6.5 thousand servicemen, 25 teams of military doctors, 400 units of army equipment are involved in rescue work in the disaster zone.


Tens of thousands of people died, 514 thousand people were left homeless. The loss of national wealth amounted to 8.8 billion rubles.


Over the past 80 years, this is the most powerful earthquake in the Caucasus...


On March 1, 1995, FAMOUS TV JOURNALIST VLAD LEAVES was KILLED in the entrance of his house.


The murder of the general director of ORT and just a popular person was a shock to millions of people. He was so loved and popular that even the then head of state, Boris Yeltsin, dropped everything and rushed to Ostankino to apologize to the TV people. The investigation began almost immediately, sketches of the alleged killers were made and published, but a hot pursuit search yielded no results.


Over the past 11 years, the wording of the messages of the Prosecutor General's Office has hardly changed. Only the volume of investigation materials has changed: this year there are already more than 200 volumes.


CAPTURE OF BUDENNOVSK. On June 14, 1995, detachments of Chechen fighters under the command of Shamil Basayev entered Budennovsk and took about 1,500 hostages. The terrorists, setting the conditions for the release of the hostages to be the cessation of hostilities and the start of negotiations in Chechnya, entrenched themselves in the city hospital.

On June 17, special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB made several attempts to storm the hospital. During these operations, both the terrorists and the stormers were killed and wounded, but the hostages suffered the most (from the fire of the stormers) - up to 30 people died and many were injured. During the assault, the terrorists forced the hostages, including women, to stand at the windows and shout to the Russian servicemen: "Don't shoot!"

After the failure of the assault on June 18, with the mediation of S.A. Kovalev, negotiations began between Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and Basayev, during which they managed to reach an agreement on the release of the hostages. The conditions for their release were: the cessation of hostilities on the territory of Chechnya and the resolution of disputes through negotiations. A detachment of militants left on buses provided by the federal side to the mountainous Chechen village of Zandak. At the same time, 120 hostages who volunteered to accompany the terrorists were used as a "human shield". In total, as a result of this terrorist act in Budyonnovsk, 105 civilians were killed, including 18 women, 17 men over 55 years old, a boy and a girl under 16 years old. Also killed were 11 police officers and at least 14 servicemen.


THE MURDER OF YITZCHAK RABIN. Any Israeli knows the name of the killer of the Israeli prime minister. Yigal Yigal Amir is a member of the underground ultra-ultra-right nationalist organization Eyal (Lions of Judah).

The murder happened on November 4, 1995 in Tel Aviv, in the evening after thousands of people demonstrated in support of the peace process. Wounded in the back by 2 bullets, Yitzhak Rabin was taken in the back seat of a government limousine to the nearby Ichilov hospital.

By 11:00 p.m., Rabin's personal secretary reported that the prime minister had been shot to death.


The aging leader of the Workers' Party, Yitzhak Rabin, whose policies were subjected to the most severe criticism, was canonized at the moment. In Israel, it is now customary to name squares, streets and educational institutions after him ...


EXPLOSIONS OF HOUSES IN MOSCOW AND VOLGODONSK IN 1999. A series of terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 claimed the lives of more than 300 people. The explosions occurred in a situation where fighting was going on in Dagestan between federal troops and invading armed detachments of separatists from Chechnya, led by Shamil Basayev ...


Explosion on Guryanov street. On September 8, 1999, at 11:58 p.m., an explosion occurred in the basement of a 9-storey residential building at 19 Guryanov Street (Pechatniki district) in the southeast of Moscow. The building was partially destroyed, one section of the residential building collapsed. Rescuers worked on the ruins of a residential building for several days ...


According to official figures, the explosion killed 109 people and injured 160 people. As it was established by explosives experts, an explosive device with a capacity of 300-400 kg of TNT went off in the basement of the house. The blast wave deformed the structures of the neighboring house 19. A few days later, houses 17 and 19 were destroyed by explosives, the residents were relocated to other houses...


The media speculated that it was a terrorist act. September 13 was a day of mourning for those killed in the explosion. On the same day, a sketch of a man who allegedly rented a basement in a residential building was shown on television ...


Explosion on the Kashirskoye Highway. On September 13 at 5 o'clock in the morning there was a new explosion on the Kashirskoye Highway in an 8-storey residential building number 6/3. As a result of the explosion, the house was completely destroyed, almost all the tenants who were in the residential building - 124 people - died, 9 people were injured and rescued from the rubble, 119 families were injured. Due to the fact that the house was brick, almost all the inhabitants who were in it during the explosion died ...


On the same day, September 13, stockpiles of explosives in sugar bags were found in the Maryino area, sufficient to destroy several more residential buildings. A state of emergency was not introduced, but unprecedented security measures were taken in Moscow and other cities, all attics and basements were checked. Residents of residential buildings spontaneously organized round-the-clock duty for several months ...


On September 16, a few days after the explosions in Moscow, at 5.40 am, the city of Volgodonsk, Rostov Region, was rocked by a terrible explosion. Near the police department building and next to a 9-storey residential building at 35 Gagarin Street, a GAZ-53 van filled with explosives exploded. A funnel with a diameter of 15 m and a depth of 3 m was formed in the courtyard of the house. 437 people lived in 144 apartments of the panel house - 18 people died.


A TRAGEDY IN THE TRANSITION ON PUSHKINSKAYA SQUARE. Another powerful explosion thundered in Moscow. The explosive device was planted by two young Caucasians...


Allegedly, they approached commercial tent number 40 and asked to sell them goods for US dollars. The seller refused, so the young people asked the seller to look after the bag while they went to exchange dollars for rubles. Literally a few minutes after they left, an improvised explosive device with a capacity of 400 grams to 1.5 kg of TNT went off in a bag ...

According to witnesses who were at that moment in the transition, first there was a strong bang, a bright flash, then an explosive wave swept through the tunnel and heavy smoke poured down. People began to run outside. Those who were closer to the epicenter had numerous burns and wounds, blood was shed. The explosion was so powerful that it literally tore off the clothes from the victims ...


As a result of the explosion, 7 people died, 93 sought medical help. Of these, 59 people were taken to city hospitals, 34 refused hospitalization. Three children were among the victims...


DEATH OF "KURSK". On August 12, 2000, a tragedy broke out in the Barants Sea, chaining hundreds of millions of people to TV screens.

For several days, Russian and British naval forces have been trying to rescue 118 crew members of the nuclear submarine from underwater captivity.


However, all efforts were in vain...


As the investigation will later establish, the cause of the tragedy was the explosion of the so-called "thick torpedo" in the torpedo compartment. All submariners on board were killed.


TRAGEDY ON DUBROVKA. On October 23, 2002, at 9:15 pm, armed men in camouflage burst into the building of the Theater Center on Dubrovka, on Melnikova Street (the former Palace of Culture of the State Bearing Plant). At that time, the musical "Nord-Ost" was going on in the Palace of Culture, there were more than 700 people in the hall. The terrorists declared all people - spectators and theater workers - hostages and began to mine the building ...


At 10 pm it became known that the theater building was seized by a detachment of Chechen fighters led by Movsar Baraev, there are women among the terrorists, all of them are hung with explosives ...


On October 24, at a quarter past midnight, the first attempt was made to establish contact with the terrorists: Aslambek Aslakhanov, a State Duma deputy from Chechnya, entered the center building. At half past twelve, several shots rang out in the building. The hostages, who managed to contact the TV companies by mobile phones, ask not to start the assault: “These people say that 10 hostages will be killed for each of their killed or wounded”...


On October 26, at five o'clock 30 minutes, three explosions and several automatic bursts were heard near the building of the Palace of Culture. At about six o'clock, the special forces began an assault, during which nerve gas was used. At half past seven in the morning, the official representative of the FSB said that the Theater Center was under the control of special services, Movsar Baraev and most of the terrorists had been destroyed ...


At 7:25 a.m., presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky officially announced that the operation to free the hostages had been completed. The number of neutralized terrorists in the building of the Theater Center on Dubrovka alone amounted to 50 people - 18 women and 32 men. Three terrorists arrested...


On November 7, 2002, the Moscow prosecutor's office published a list of citizens who died as a result of the actions of terrorists who seized the theater center on Dubrovka. It included 128 people: 120 Russians and 8 citizens from near and far abroad countries. Five hostages received gunshot wounds as a result of the actions of militants. The four dead hostages could not be identified for a long time, and their names were not included in the lists of the health authorities...


SEPTEMBER 11 - WAR WITHOUT RULES. America has never known such a tragedy... The worst nightmares have come true... Manhattan, 8 hours 44 minutes in the morning on September 11, 2001, a minute before the tragedy.


At 8:45 a.m., the first kamikaze plane crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The frame shows how the second flies up ...


One of the towers, 110 stories high, was rammed through...


Explosion and immediately a strong fire. The last one to answer the phone from the upper floors shouted "We're dying!"


A series of powerful explosions took place along the perimeter of the Twin Towers...


The fire burst out. The top of the building "falls" into the base ...


The two tallest buildings in the World Trade Center collapsed after holding on for less than an hour...


The streets of Manhattan south of Colon Street are shrouded in such dense smoke that rescuers cannot get there...


BESLAN - A BITTER LESSON. At about 8 am on September 1, 2004, near the village of Khurikau, on the border of the Mozdok and Pravoberezhny regions of North Ossetia, about 60 km from Beslan, armed men stopped a local district police officer, a police major, and put him in their car. According to preliminary data, it was with the help of the certificate of an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that the militants in a GAZ-66 and two cars freely passed several checkpoints on the way to Beslan ...


During the solemn assembly on the occasion of September 1, they broke into the territory of school No. 1. In total, according to the education committee of the Beslan administration, there were 895 students and 59 teachers and technical staff of the school on the line. The number of parents who came to take their children to school is unknown...


Opening indiscriminate fire into the air, the militants ordered everyone present to enter the school building, but most - mostly high school students and adults - were able to simply run away. Those who could not do it - elementary school students and their parents and part of the teachers - were driven into the gym by the bandits...

Then everything happened like in a nightmare... An explosion was recorded inside the school. Data on the number of hostages is still scattered. According to the lists compiled by relatives and parents of students, it was found that 132 children can be in the school. In total, according to unconfirmed reports, the militants managed to capture from 300 to 400 people...


There is evidence that the gym is mined ... Bodies are burning in the gym, they are flooded with water cannons. Strong explosions inside the school are heard with some persistent periodicity. Meanwhile, the crowd slowly but surely begins to approach the building. Soldiers of the internal troops are trying to get in their way. "Better let it go," one of the men says calmly. And they retreat. People want to go to the gym and see with their own eyes how many people were killed there...


The hostages are shot, they die of dehydration and suffocation...


This is what the gym looked like after the assault...


Sad results: in Beslan they say that about six hundred people were saved. No one denies that there were at least a thousand hostages - so the total number of victims is about 400 people. There is still no exact data - many are missing ...


At the end of December 2004, the strongest earthquake and tsunami in the last 40 years occurred in six countries of Southeast Asia.


The first and most powerful earthquake occurred on December 26 at about 03:00 in the Indian Ocean. Literally a few minutes later, a destructive tsunami wave reached land - first of all, the island of Sumatra (Indonesia), and then Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives /


Eyewitnesses told how, in absolutely sunny, calm weather, the water suddenly began to recede from the beach, and then a six-meter wave formed. Those who were able to escape in these few minutes were saved. Tons of water swept away everything in its path: people, cars and even entire hotels.

The number of victims reached 400 thousand people. About 100,000 more have not yet been found or identified.


The largest number of victims - more than 10 thousand - was registered in Indonesia, off the coast of which there was an epicenter with a force of 9 on the Richter scale.


Then hundreds of settlements were flooded and wiped off the face of the earth.


Seismologists call the December events exceptional. According to them, no more than five such earthquakes have been recorded over the past century.

This region of Southeast Asia still cannot recover from the terrible destruction.

No matter how far scientific and technological progress strides, catastrophes have happened, are happening and, probably, will happen for a long time to come. Some of them could have been avoided, but most of the worst events in the world were inevitable because they happened at the behest of mother nature.

Worst plane crash ever

Collision of two Boeing 747s

Humanity does not know a more terrible plane crash than the one that occurred on March 27, 1977 on the island of Tenerife, belonging to the Canary group. On this day, two Boeing 747s collided at Los Rodeo Airport, one of which belonged to KLM, the other to Pan American. This terrible tragedy claimed 583 lives. The reasons that led to this disaster is a fatal and paradoxical combination of circumstances.

Los Rodeos airport this ill-fated Sunday was seriously overloaded. The dispatcher spoke with a strong Spanish accent, and radio communications suffered from serious interference. Because of this, the Boeing commander KLM misinterpreted the command to abort the flight, which became the fatal cause of the collision of two maneuvering aircraft.

Only a few passengers managed to escape through the holes formed in the Pan American aircraft. Another Boeing lost its wings and tail, causing it to fall 150 meters from the crash site, after which it was dragged for another 300 meters. Both flying cars caught fire.

There were 248 passengers on board the Boeing KLM, none of whom survived. The Pan American plane was the site of the death of 335 people, including the entire crew, as well as the famous model and actress Yves Meyer.

The worst of man-made disasters

On July 6, 1988, the worst disaster in the history of oil production occurred in the North Sea. It happened on the Piper Alpha oil platform, which was built in 1976. The number of victims was 167 people, the company suffered a loss of about three and a half billion dollars.

The most annoying thing is that the number of victims could be much less if it were not for ordinary human stupidity. There was a large gas leak, followed by an explosion. But instead of stopping the oil supply immediately after the start of the accident, the service personnel waited for the command from the management.

The countdown went on for minutes, and soon the entire platform of the Occidental Petroleum corporation was engulfed in fire, even the living quarters caught fire. Those who could have survived the blast were burned alive. Only those who managed to jump into the water survived.

Worst water accident ever

When the topic of tragedies on the water is touched upon, the movie Titanic involuntarily comes to mind. Moreover, such a disaster really happened. But this shipwreck is not the worst in the history of mankind.

Wilhelm Gustloff

The sinking of the German ship "Wilhelm Gustloff" is considered to be the biggest disaster that occurred on the water. The tragedy occurred on January 30, 1945. Its culprit was a submarine of the Soviet Union, which knocked out a ship that could accommodate almost 9,000 passengers.

This, at that time, the perfect product of shipbuilding, was made in 1938. It seemed unsinkable and contained 9 decks, restaurants, a winter garden, climate control, gyms, theaters, dance floors, swimming pools, a church, and even Hitler's rooms.

Its length was more than two hundred meters, it could swim half the planet without refueling. The ingenious creation could not sink without outside interference. And it happened in the person of the crew of the S-13 submarine, commanded by A. I. Marinesko. Three torpedoes were fired at the legendary ship. In a matter of minutes, he was in the abyss of the waters of the Baltic Sea. All crew members were killed, including about 8,000 representatives of the German military elite who were evacuated from Danzig.

The crash of the Wilhelm Gustloff (video)

The greatest environmental tragedy

Shrunken Aral Sea

Among all environmental disasters, the leading place is occupied by the drying up of the Aral Sea. At its best, it was the fourth largest among all the lakes in the world.

The disaster occurred due to the unreasonable use of water, which was used to water gardens and fields. The shrinkage was due to the ill-considered political ambitions and actions of the leaders of those times.

Gradually, the coast line moved far inland, which led to the extinction of most species of flora and fauna. In addition, droughts began to increase, the climate changed significantly, navigation became impossible, and more than sixty people were left without work.

Where did the Aral Sea disappear: strange symbols on the dried bottom (VIDEO)

Nuclear disaster

What could be worse than a nuclear catastrophe? The lifeless kilometers of the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl region are the embodiment of these fears. The accident occurred in 1986, when one of the power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded early in April morning.

Chernobyl 1986

This tragedy claimed several hundred lives of tow trucks, thousands died over the next ten years. And how many people were forced to leave their homes, only God knows ...

Children of these people are still born with developmental anomalies. The atmosphere, land and water around the nuclear power plant are contaminated with radioactive substances.

The level of radiation in this region is still thousands of times higher than normal. No one knows how long it will take for people to settle in these places. The scale of this disaster is still not fully known.

Chernobyl accident 1986: Chernobyl, Pripyat - liquidation (VIDEO)

Disaster over the Black Sea: Tu-154 of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation crashed

The crash of the Tu-154 of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

Not so long ago, there was a crash of a Tu-154 aircraft of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, heading to Syria. It claimed the lives of 64 talented artists of the Alexandrov Ensemble, nine well-known leading TV channels, the head of a charitable organization - the famous Doctor Liza, eight military men, two civil servants, and all crew members. In total, 92 people died in this terrible plane crash.

On this tragic morning in December 2016, the plane refueled at Adler, but crashed unexpectedly shortly after takeoff. The investigation was conducted for a long time, because it was necessary to know what was the cause of the Tu-154 crash.

The commission investigating the causes of the accident, among the circumstances that led to the disaster, called the overload of the aircraft, crew fatigue and the low professional level of training and organization of the flight.

The results of the investigation of the Tu-154 crash of the Ministry of Defense of Russia (VIDEO)

Submarine "Kursk"

Submarine "Kursk"

The crash of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, which killed 118 people on board, occurred in 2000 in the Barents Sea. This is the second largest accident in the history of the Russian submarine fleet after the B-37 disaster.

On August 12, as planned, preparations began for mock attacks. The last recorded actions on the boat were recorded at 11.15.

A few hours before the tragedy, the crew commander was informed about the cotton, which he did not pay attention to. Then the boat shook violently, which was associated with the inclusion of the antenna of the radar station. After that, the captain of the boat did not get in touch anymore. At 23.00 the situation on the submarine was declared as emergency, which was reported to the leadership of the fleet and the country. In the morning next day as a result of search work, the Kursk was found at the bottom of the sea at a depth of 108 m.

The official version of the cause of the tragedy is the explosion of a training torpedo, which occurred as a result of a fuel leak.

Submarine Kursk: what really happened? (VIDEO)

The crash of the ship "Admiral Nakhimov"

The crash of the passenger ship "Admiral Nakhimov" occurred in August 1981 near Novorossiysk. There were 1234 people on board the ship, 423 of whom lost their lives on that ill-fated day. It is known that Vladimir Vinokur and Lev Leshchenko were late for this flight.

At 23:12, the ship collided with the dry cargo ship Pyotr Vasev, as a result of which the electric generator was flooded and the light went out on the Nakhimov. The ship became uncontrollable and continued to move forward by inertia. As a result of the collision, a hole of up to eighty square meters was formed in the starboard side. Panic began among the passengers, many climbed onto the port side and thus went down to the water.

Almost a thousand people ended up in the water, who, moreover, got dirty with fuel oil and paint. Eight minutes after the collision, the ship sank.

Steamboat Admiral Nakhimov: the wreck of the ship - Russian Titanic (VIDEO)

Oil platform that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico

The worst environmental disasters in the world in 2010 were supplemented by another one that happened in the Gulf of Mexico, eighty kilometers from Louisiana. This is one of the most dangerous man-made accidents for the environment. It happened on April 20 at the Deepwater Horizon oil platform.

As a result of pipe rupture, about five million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

A 75,000 sq. km, which is 5% of its total area. The disaster took the lives of 11 people, 17 were injured.

Catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico (VIDEO)

The crash of the Concordia

On January 14, 2012, the list of the most terrible incidents in the world was replenished with one more. Near the Italian Tuscany, the cruise ship Costa Concordia ran into a rock ledge, as a result of which a seventy-meter hole was formed in it. At this time, most of the passengers were in the restaurant.

The right side of the liner began to sink into the water, then it was thrown onto the shallows 1 km from the crash site. There were more than 4,000 people on the ship, who were evacuated all night, but not everyone was saved: 32 people still died and a hundred were injured.

Costa Concordia - the crash through the eyes of eyewitnesses (VIDEO)

Krakatoa eruption in 1883

Natural disasters show how insignificant and helpless we are before the phenomena of nature. But all the most terrible disasters in the world are nothing compared to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, which occurred in 1883.

On May 20, a large smoke column could be seen over the Krakatoa volcano. At that moment, even at a distance of 160 kilometers from him, the windows of houses trembled. All nearby islands were covered with a thick layer of dust and pumice.

The eruptions continued until 27 August. The last explosion was the climax, as a result of which sound waves passed, several times rounded the entire planet. On the ships sailing in the Sunda Strait at that moment, the compasses stopped showing correctly.

These explosions submerged the entire northern part of the island. The seabed has been uplifted by the eruptions. A lot of ash from the volcano remained in the atmosphere for another two to three years.

The tsunami, whose height was thirty meters, washed away about three hundred settlements, claimed the lives of 36,000 people.

The most powerful eruption of Krakatau Volcano (VIDEO)

Earthquake in Spitak in 1988

On December 7, 1988, the list of "The best disasters in the world" was replenished with another one that occurred in the Armenian Spitak. On this tragic day, tremors literally wiped out this city from the face of the earth in just half a minute, destroyed Leninakan, Stepanavan and Kirovakan beyond recognition. In total, twenty-one cities and three hundred and fifty villages were affected.

In Spitak itself, the earthquake had a force of ten, Leninakan was hit by a force of nine, and Kirovakan by an force of eight, and almost the rest of Armenia was hit by a force of six. Seismologists have calculated that during this earthquake energy was released, corresponding to the strength of ten exploding atomic bombs. The wave that this tragedy caused was recorded by scientific laboratories almost all over the world.

This natural disaster took away 25,000 lives, 140,000 health, and 514,000 roofs over their heads. Forty percent of the industry of the republic is out of order, schools, hospitals, theaters, museums, houses of culture, roads and railways are destroyed.

The military, doctors, public figures of the whole country and abroad, both near and far, were called to help. Humanitarian aid was actively collected all over the world. Tents, field kitchens and first-aid posts were deployed throughout the area affected by the tragedy.

The saddest and most instructive thing in this situation is that the scale and victims of this terrible disaster could be many times less if the seismic activity of this region were taken into account and all buildings were built taking into account these features. The unpreparedness of rescue services also contributed.

Tragic days: earthquake in Spitak (VIDEO)

2004 tsunami Indian Ocean - Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka

In December 2004, a devastating tsunami caused by an underwater earthquake hit the coasts of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and other countries. Huge waves devastated the area and brought death to 200,000 people. The most annoying thing is that most of the dead are children, since in this region there is a high proportion of children per population, in addition, children are physically weaker and less able to resist water than an adult.

Aceh in Indonesia suffered the most losses. Almost all the buildings there were destroyed, 168,000 people died.

Geographically, this earthquake was simply huge. Moved up to 1200 kilometers of rock. The shift occurred in two phases with an interval of two to three minutes.

The number of victims turned out to be so high because there was no general warning system along the entire coast of the Indian Ocean.

There is nothing worse than disasters and tragedies that deprive people of life, shelter, health, destroy industry and everything that a person has worked for many years. But it often turns out that the number of victims and destruction in such situations could be much less if everyone were conscientious about their professional duties, in some cases it was necessary to foresee an evacuation plan and a warning system for local residents. Let's hope that in the future humanity will find a way to avoid such terrible tragedies or reduce the damage from them.

Tsunami in Indonesia 2004 (VIDEO)

Humanity will never forget about the accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. The explosion and fire happened on April 20, 2010, 80 kilometers from the coast of Louisiana, at the Macondo field. The oil spill was the largest in US history and effectively ruined the Gulf of Mexico. We remembered the largest man-made and environmental disasters in the world, some of which are almost worse than the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.

Could the accident have been avoided? Technogenic disasters often occur as a result of natural disasters, but also because of worn-out equipment, greed, negligence, inattention ... The memory of them serves as an important lesson for humanity, because natural disasters can harm people, but not the planet, but technogenic threaten absolutely the whole world around.

15. Explosion at a fertilizer plant in the city of West - 15 victims

On April 17, 2013, an explosion occurred at a fertilizer plant in West Texas. The explosion occurred at 19:50 local time and it completely destroyed the plant, which belonged to the local company Adair Grain Inc. The explosion destroyed a school and a nursing home located next to the plant. About 75 buildings in the city of West were seriously damaged. The explosion killed 15 people, about 200 people were injured. Initially, there was a fire at the plant, and the explosion happened at the moment when firefighters were trying to cope with the fire. At least 11 firefighters have died.

According to eyewitnesses, the explosion was so strong that it could be heard about 70 km from the plant, and the US Geological Survey recorded ground vibrations of magnitude 2.1. "It was like an atomic bomb explosion," eyewitnesses said. Residents in a number of areas near the West were evacuated due to a leak of ammonia used in the manufacture of fertilizers, the authorities warned everyone about the leak of toxic substances. A no-fly zone was introduced over West at an altitude of up to 1 km. The city looked like a war zone...

In May 2013, a criminal case was opened on the fact of the explosion. The investigation revealed that the company had been storing the chemicals that caused the explosion in violation of safety requirements. The US Chemical Safety Committee found that the company failed to take the necessary measures to prevent fire and explosion. In addition, at that time there were no regulations that would prohibit the storage of ammonium nitrate near populated areas.

14. Flooding of Boston with molasses - 21 victims

The molasses flood in Boston happened on January 15, 1919, after a giant molasses reservoir exploded in Boston's North End, sending a wave of sugary liquid through the streets of the city at great speed. 21 people died, about 150 were hospitalized. The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company distillery during Prohibition (fermented molasses was widely used to produce ethanol at the time). On the eve of the introduction of a complete ban, the owners tried to have time to make as much rum as possible ...

Apparently, due to metal fatigue in an overflowing tank with 8700 m³ of molasses, sheets of metal connected by rivets dispersed. The ground trembled, and a wave of molasses up to 2 meters high poured into the streets. The pressure of the wave was so great that it moved the freight train off the tracks. Nearby buildings were flooded to a meter high, some collapsed. People, horses, dogs got stuck in a sticky wave and died from suffocation.

A Red Cross mobile hospital was deployed in the disaster zone, a US Navy unit entered the city - the rescue operation lasted a week. The molasses was removed with sand, which absorbed the viscous mass. Although the factory owners blamed the anarchists for the explosion, the townspeople secured payments totaling $600,000 (today about $8.5 million) from them. According to Bostonians, even now, on hot days, a sugary smell of caramel emanates from old houses ...

13. Explosion at the Phillips chemical plant in 1989 - 23 victims

The explosion at the Phillips Petroleum Company chemical plant occurred on October 23, 1989, in Pasadena, Texas. Due to the oversight of the employees, a large leak of combustible gas occurred, and there was a powerful explosion, equivalent to two and a half tons of dynamite. A tank of 20,000 gallons of isobutane gas exploded and the chain reaction caused 4 more explosions.
During scheduled maintenance, the air ducts on the valves were accidentally closed. Thus, the control room displayed that the valve was open, while it was as if it were closed. This led to the formation of a cloud of steam, which exploded from the slightest spark. The initial explosion was recorded as 3.5 on the Richter scale and fragments of the explosion were found within a radius of 6 miles from the explosion.

Many of the fire hydrants failed, and the water pressure in the remaining hydrants dropped dramatically. It took firefighters more than ten hours to bring the situation under control and completely extinguish the flames. 23 people died and 314 were injured.

12. Fire at the pyrotechnic factory in Enschede in 2000 - 23 victims

On May 13, 2000, as a result of a fire at the pyrotechnic factory S.F. Fireworks in the Dutch city of Enschede (Enshede) was an explosion, killing 23 people, including four firefighters. The fire started in the central building and spread to two full containers of fireworks illegally stored outside the building. Several subsequent explosions occurred with the largest explosion felt as far away as 19 miles.

During the fire, a significant part of the Rombek district burned down and was destroyed - 15 streets were burned, 1,500 houses were damaged, and 400 houses were destroyed. In addition to 23 deaths, 947 people were injured and 1,250 people were left homeless. Fire crews arrived from Germany to help fight the fire.

When S.F. Fireworks built a pyrotechnic factory in 1977, it was located far from the city. As the city grew, new low-cost housing surrounded the warehouses, causing horrendous destruction, injury, and death. Most of the locals had no idea that they lived in such close proximity to the fireworks warehouse.

11. Explosion at a chemical plant in Flixboro - 64 victims

An explosion occurred in Flixborough, England on June 1, 1974, killing 28 people. The accident happened at the Nipro plant, which was engaged in the production of ammonium. The disaster caused a whopping £36 million in property damage. British industry has never known such a catastrophe. The chemical plant in Flixboro has practically ceased to exist.
A chemical plant near the village of Flixboro specialized in the production of caprolactam, the starting product for synthetic fibers.

The accident happened like this: the bypass pipeline connecting reactors 4 and 6 broke, and steam began to escape from the outlets. A cloud of cyclohexane vapors was formed, containing several tens of tons of the substance. The source of ignition of the cloud was probably the torch of the hydrogen plant. Due to an accident at the plant, an explosive mass of heated vapors was thrown into the air, for which the slightest spark was enough to ignite. 45 minutes after the accident, when the mushroom cloud reached the hydrogen plant, there was a powerful explosion. The explosion in its destructive power was equivalent to the explosion of 45 tons of TNT, detonated at a height of 45 m.

About 2,000 buildings outside the enterprise were damaged. In the village of Amcotts, across the River Trent, 73 out of 77 houses were badly damaged. In Flixboro, located at a distance of 1200 m from the center of the explosion, 72 out of 79 houses were destroyed. 64 people died from the explosion and subsequent fire, 75 people at the enterprise and outside were injured of varying severity.

Under pressure from the owners of the Nipro company, plant engineers often deviated from the established technological regulations and ignored safety requirements. The sad experience of this catastrophe showed that it is necessary for chemical plants to have a high-speed automatic fire extinguishing system that allows eliminating fires of solid chemicals no later than 3 seconds.

10 Hot Steel Spill - 35 Victims

On April 18, 2007, 32 people died and 6 were injured when a ladle containing molten steel fell at the Qinghe Special Steel Corporation plant in China. Thirty tons of liquid steel heated to 1500 degrees Celsius fell from the overhead conveyor. Liquid steel broke through the doors and windows into the adjacent room, where the shift workers were.

Perhaps the most horrifying fact that the study of this catastrophe uncovered is that it could have been prevented. The immediate cause of the accident was the misuse of substandard equipment. The investigation concluded that there were a number of safety deficiencies and breaches that contributed to the accident.

When emergency services reached the crash site, they were stopped by the heat of the molten steel and were unable to reach the victims for a long time. After the steel began to cool, they found 32 victims. Surprisingly, 6 people miraculously survived this accident, and with severe burns were taken to the hospital.

9. The collapse of the train with oil in Lac-Megantic - 47 victims

The explosion of the train with oil occurred on the evening of July 6, 2013 in the town of Lac-Megantic in Quebec, Canada. A train owned by The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, carrying 74 tanks of crude oil, has derailed. As a result, several tanks caught fire and exploded. It is known about 42 dead, 5 more people are missing. As a result of the fire that engulfed the city, approximately half of the buildings in the city center were destroyed.

In October 2012, epoxy materials were used on the GE C30-7 #5017 diesel locomotive during engine repair in order to complete the repair as soon as possible. In subsequent operation, these materials collapsed, the locomotive began to smoke heavily. Leaking fuels and lubricants accumulated in the turbocharger housing, which led to a fire on the night of the crash.

The train driver was Tom Harding. At 23:00 the train stopped at Nantes station, on the main track. Tom contacted the dispatcher and reported problems with the diesel, strong black exhaust; the solution of the problem with the diesel locomotive was postponed until the morning, and the driver left to spend the night in a hotel. The train with the diesel locomotive running and dangerous goods was left overnight at an unattended station. At 23:50, the 911 service received a message about a fire on the lead diesel locomotive. The compressor was not working in it, and the pressure in the brake line was decreasing. At 00:56, the pressure dropped to such a level that the hand brakes could not hold the cars and the uncontrolled train went down the slope towards Lac Megantic. At 00:14, the train derailed at a speed of 105 km/h and ended up in the city center. Cars derailed, explosions followed, and burning oil spilled along the railroad.
People in a nearby cafe, feeling the tremors of the earth, decided that an earthquake had begun and hid under the tables, as a result, they did not have time to escape from the fire ... This railway accident became one of the deadliest in Canada.

8. The accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP - at least 75 victims

The accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is an industrial man-made disaster that occurred on August 17, 2009 - a "rainy day" for the Russian hydropower industry. As a result of the accident, 75 people died, serious damage was caused to the equipment and premises of the station, and electricity production was suspended. The consequences of the accident affected the ecological situation in the water area adjacent to the HPP, the social and economic spheres of the region.

At the time of the accident, the hydroelectric power plant was carrying a load of 4100 MW, out of 10 hydroelectric units, 9 were in operation. At 8:13 local time on August 17, hydroelectric unit No. 2 was destroyed with the flow of significant volumes of water through the shaft of the hydroelectric unit under high pressure. The power plant personnel, who were in the engine room, heard a loud bang and saw the release of a powerful column of water.
Streams of water quickly flooded the engine room and the rooms below it. All hydroelectric power plants were flooded, while working GAs experienced short circuits (their flashes are clearly visible on the amateur video of the disaster), which put them out of action.

The non-obviousness of the causes of the accident (according to the Minister of Energy of Russia Shmatko, “this is the largest and most incomprehensible hydropower accident that has ever been in the world”) caused a number of versions that were not confirmed (from terrorism to a water hammer). The most probable cause of the accident is the fatigue failure of the studs that occurred during the operation of the hydraulic unit No. 2 with a temporary impeller and an unacceptable level of vibration in 1981-83.

7. Explosion on the "Piper Alpha" - 167 victims

On July 6, 1988, the Piper Alpha oil platform in the North Sea was destroyed by an explosion. The Piper Alpha platform, installed in 1976, was the largest structure on the Piper site, owned by the Scottish company Occidental Petroleum. The platform was located 200 km northeast of Aberdeen and served as the site's oil production control center. The platform included a heliport and accommodation for 200 oilmen working in shifts. On July 6, an unexpected explosion occurred on the Piper Alpha. The fire that engulfed the platform did not even give the staff the opportunity to send an SOS signal.

As a result of a gas leak and subsequent explosion, 167 people out of 226 who were on the platform at that moment died, only 59 survived. It took 3 weeks to extinguish the fire, with strong winds (80 mph) and 70 foot waves. The final cause of the explosion could not be established. According to the most popular version, there was a gas leak on the platform, as a result of which a small spark was enough to start a fire. The accident on the Piper Alpha platform led to serious criticism and subsequent revision of the safety standards for oil production in the North Sea.

6. Fire in Tianjin Binhai - 170 victims

On the night of August 12, 2015, two explosions broke out at a container storage area in the port of Tianjin. At 22:50 local time, reports of a fire began to arrive at the warehouses of the Zhuihai company, which transports hazardous chemicals, located in the port of Tianjin. As investigators later found out, it was caused by spontaneous combustion of nitrocellulose dried and heated in the summer sun. Within 30 seconds of the first explosion, a second one occurred - a container of ammonium nitrate. The local seismological service estimated the power of the first explosion at 3 tons of TNT equivalent, the second at 21 tons. Firefighters arrived at the scene for a long time could not stop the spread of fire. The fires raged for several days and there were 8 more explosions. The explosions created a huge crater.

The explosions resulted in the death of 173 people, 797 injured, and 8 people are missing. . Thousands of Toyota, Renault, Volkswagen, Kia and Hyundai vehicles were damaged. 7,533 containers, 12,428 vehicles and 304 buildings were destroyed or damaged. In addition to death and destruction, damage totaled $9 billion. Three apartment buildings were found to have been built within a one-kilometer radius of the chemical warehouse, which is prohibited by Chinese law. Authorities have charged 11 officials from the city of Tianjin in connection with the bombing. They are accused of negligence and abuse of power.

5. Val di Stave, dam burst - 268 victims

In northern Italy, over the village of Stave, the Val di Stave dam collapsed on July 19, 1985. The accident destroyed 8 bridges, 63 buildings, 268 people died. After the crash, an investigation determined that there had been poor maintenance and a low operational safety margin.

In the upper of the two dams, rainfall made the drainage pipe less efficient and clogged. Water continued to flow into the reservoir and the pressure in the damaged pipe increased, which also caused pressure on the coastal rock. The water began to seep into the soil, liquefy into mud, and weaken the banks until, finally, erosion occurred. In just 30 seconds, water and mud flows from the upper dam broke through and poured into the lower dam.

4. The collapse of the waste heap in Nambii - 300 victims

By the 1990s, Nambiya, a mining town in southeast Ecuador, had a reputation for being an "aggressive eco-environment". The local mountains were pitted with miners, riddled with holes from mining, the air is humid and filled with chemicals, toxic gases from the mine and a huge waste heap.

On May 9, 1993, much of the coal slag mountain at the end of the valley collapsed, killing about 300 people in a landslide. 10,000 people lived in the village on an area of ​​about 1 square mile. Most of the city's houses were built right at the entrance to the mine tunnel. Experts have long warned that the mountain has become almost hollow. They said that further coal mining would lead to landslides, and after several days of heavy rains, the soil softened, and the worst predictions came true.

3. Texas explosion - 581 victims

A man-made disaster happened on April 16, 1947 in the port of Texas City, USA. A fire aboard the French ship Grandcamp detonated about 2,100 tons of ammonium nitrate (ammonium nitrate), which led to a chain reaction of fires and explosions on nearby ships and oil storage facilities.

The tragedy killed at least 581 people (including all but one Texas City Fire Department), over 5,000 people were injured, and 1,784 were hospitalized. The port and a significant part of the city were completely destroyed, many enterprises were razed to the ground or burned down. More than 1,100 vehicles were damaged and 362 freight cars were wrecked - property damage was estimated at $100 million. These events sparked the first class action lawsuit against the US government.

The Court found the Federal Government guilty of criminal negligence committed by government agencies and their representatives involved in the production, packaging and labeling of ammonium nitrate, aggravated by gross errors in its transportation, storage, loading and fire fighting measures. 1,394 compensations were paid out, totaling about $17 million.

2. Bhopal disaster - up to 160,000 victims

This is one of the worst man-made disasters in the Indian city of Bhopal. As a result of an accident at a chemical plant owned by the American chemical company Union Carbide, and producing pesticides, the poisonous substance methyl isocyanate was released. It was stored at the factory in three tanks partially dug into the ground, each of which could hold about 60,000 liters of liquid.
The cause of the tragedy was an emergency release of methyl isocyanate vapor, which heated above the boiling point in the factory tank, which led to an increase in pressure and a rupture of the emergency valve. As a result, on December 3, 1984, about 42 tons of toxic fumes were released into the atmosphere. A cloud of methyl isocyanate covered the nearby slums and the railway station, located 2 km away.

The Bhopal disaster is the largest in terms of the number of victims in modern history, resulting in the immediate death of at least 18 thousand people, of which 3 thousand died on the day of the accident, and 15 thousand in subsequent years. According to other sources, the total number of victims is estimated at 150-600 thousand people. A large number of victims is explained by the high population density, untimely informing residents about the accident, lack of medical staff, as well as adverse weather conditions - a cloud of heavy vapors was carried by the wind.

Union Carbide, responsible for the tragedy, paid the victims $470 million in an out-of-court settlement in 1987 in exchange for a waiver of claims. In 2010, an Indian court found seven former Union Carbide Indian executives guilty of negligence resulting in loss of life. The convicts were sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 100,000 rupees (approximately $2,100).

1. Tragedy at the Banqiao Dam - 171,000 dead

The designers of the dam cannot even be blamed for this catastrophe, it was designed for severe floods, but this one was completely unprecedented. In August 1975, a typhoon broke through the Banqiao Dam in western China, killing about 171,000 people. The dam was built in the 1950s to generate electricity and prevent floods. Engineers have developed it with a margin of safety for a thousand years.

But on those fateful days in early August 1975, Typhoon Nina immediately produced over 40 inches of rain, exceeding the area's annual rainfall total in just one day. After several days of even heavier rains, the dam gave way and was washed away on 8 August.

The break of the dam caused a wave 33 feet high, 7 miles wide, which traveled at a speed of 30 miles per hour. In total, more than 60 dams and additional reservoirs were destroyed due to the destruction of the Banqiao Dam. The flood destroyed 5,960,000 buildings, killed 26,000 people immediately and another 145,000 died later as a result of famine and epidemics due to natural disaster.