According to Scott Maniquet, National Post, “every decade has its share of natural disasters: earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, typhoons, cyclones, volcanic eruptions, droughts, plagues, you name it. In some ways disasters and the way we react to them can become defining moments; the droughts and famines of East Africa in the 1980s, for example. The 2000s — heavy on windstorms and earthquakes — definitely had its share of defining disasters.
1. 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (approx. 230,000 killed)
On Boxing Day 2004, the worst undersea earthquake in 40 years struck off the coast of Sumatra. The quake, measuring at 9.2 on the Richter scale, was so intense that the head of Italy’s National Geophysics Institute said that even the Earth’s rotation might have been disrupted. “All the planet is vibrating,” he told a TV station.
As the earth’s crust heaved at the earthquake epicenter, a series of tidal waves reaching as high as 30 metres were sent smashing into such nearby countries as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and as far away as South Africa. Thousands of unsuspecting locals and tourists alike were washed away. The United Nations estimates that around 230,000 died in the deadly tide.
Although tourists could be seen back on some of the beaches within days, a lot of the affected areas have yet to recover five years later.
The emotional impact of this disaster was felt even further. In January, then-Prime Minister Paul Martin declared a national day of mourning, while the Ontario government established a toll-free “tsunami emotional support line” to help any upset citizens cope.
2. 2005 Hurricane Katrina (approx. 1,836 killed)
Hurricane Katrina was by all accounts a major storm — the costliest and one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. But what really made it stand out was when it broke the New Orleans levees on August 29 and let the Atlantic Ocean flood the historic city.
Subsequent images of dead New Orleans residents floating in the floodwaters shocked the world like no other disaster of the decade. For several days the world watched as the earth’s richest, most powerful country seemed helpless to rescue its own citizens.
Canwest reporter Sheldon Alberts surveying the shattered city on September 7 said this:
It is cliché to say “words cannot describe” the tableau of human suffering that has unfolded in New Orleans and across the U.S. Gulf Coast over the past 10 days.
But it is true nonetheless. In the rush to explain the scope of the disaster as reporters and government officials tried to process the misery they had seen, there have been many comparisons to 9/11 and the South Asian tsunami.
3. 2008 Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar (at least 146,000 killed)
Cyclone Nargis was a natural disaster made much worse by a disaster of a government.
Days before the Category 4 tropical cyclone struck, a Thailand-based disaster preparedness centre, set up after the 2004 tsunami, warned Myanmar’s leaders exactly what was about to happen. The warnings were ignored.
On May 2, Nargis made landfall, bringing 135 mph winds and a 3.5 metre wall of water. Satellite photos of the region which took the brunt of the storm showed that entire islands had submerged and one town had been almost entirely swept away.
Afterward a concerned world community begged for three weeks before Myanmar’s paranoid military junta finally allowed international aid workers in to help. Meanwhile countless people who survived the storm died of injuries, starvation and disease.
No full Nargis death toll will ever be known as the government quickly gave up trying to count the dead in order to hide the disaster’s true extent.
4. 2008 Sichuan earthquake (approx. 87,400)
Tremors from the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that hit China on May 12 were felt in parts of at least 10 other countries. At least 64 major aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from 4.0 to 6.1, were recorded within 72 hours of the original quake.
Worst of all, the quake struck during the day when children were in school. At least 7,000 schools are believed to have collapsed in Sichuan province at the epicenter, killing 5,335 students.
Many schools collapsed instantly while older buildings remained standing, leading citizens to accusations of shoddy and corrupt building practices. In a rare public show of anger in the country, grieving parents who had lost their only child took to the streets, demanding Communist officials pay for what happened. In the end parents were allowed to have a new child and were given money as compensation, if they stopped criticizing the government.
5. 2005 Kashmir earthquake (approx. 79,000)
“It is a whole generation that has been lost in the worst affected areas,” a Pakistani army spokesman said a couple days after this 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit on October 8.
Less than two weeks later a UN official called the quake “the most difficult humanitarian crisis ever because the scale is huge, the logistics are so difficult and there’s such a brutal winter coming on.”
Landslides and dangerous terrain made travel over the Himalayan roads of northern Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir extremely difficult. Help was slow to come for the victims lying in the debris of their collapsed homes and schools. Perseverance paid off when a 40-year-old woman was dug out alive — two months after the quake.
Other notable disasters of the decade (with approx. deaths):
• 2003 Bam earthquake, Iran (30,000)
• 2001 Gujarat earthquake, India, Pakistan (20,000)
• 2006 Bantul earthquake, Indonesia (5,800)
• 2001 Floods and landslides, Brazil (5,100)
• 2007 Cyclone Sidr, Bangladesh, India (4,200)
• 2004 Floods, Haiti, Dominican Republic (3,350) ”
Full story on The National Post.
Photo from ABC News.
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