What's the worst disaster ever?

I think if the black death were up there, I still might pick the flu just for the time in which it occurred and the speed in which it killed. The Bubonic Plague was bad, no question, but it was over time. In the same about of time, the flu killed almost twice as many in a more advanced age.

 

Yellow River, son. End of thread.

Rank Event Location Date Death Toll (Estimate)
1. 1931 Yellow River flood China summer 1931 1,000,000-4,000,000
2. 1887 Yellow River flood China 1887, September-October 900,000-2,000,000
3. 1970 Bhola cyclone East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) 1970 November 13 500,000-1,000,000
4. 1938 Yellow River flood China 1938 500,000-900,000
5. 1556 Shaanxi earthquake China 1556 January 23 830,000
6. 1839 India Cyclone India 1839 November 25 300,000+
7. 1642 Kaifeng Flood China 1642 300,000
8. 1976 Tangshan earthquake China 1976 July 28 242,000*
9. 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami Indian Ocean 2004 December 26 230,000
10. 1138 Aleppo earthquake Syria 1138 230,000

 

Flu pandemic: 50 to 100 million killed worldwide. In a year.

And let's not forget mid-century greats like Mao and Stalin and Hitler.

Couple of big earthquakes in China, too.

And the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs. That must have been pretty bad.

And New Coke. A disaster.

 

OK, added the Hindenburg, Krakatoa and the plague.
I originally left the Hindenburg off the list because, as vivid as it was, it had a relatively low loss of life. Same with Krakatoa. And the plague was several different outbreaks over the course of a couple centuries. Awful, but hard to pin down one. But they're all on the list now. No more additions. Vote for "other" if you disagree.

And dictators like Mao and Stalin, along with the Holocaust, aren't disasters. They're murder and/or acts of war. Different category.

 

Halle Berry in "Catwoman," 2004.

 

That's lookin pretty bad.

And for my vote: black death all the way. As summarized by another unnecessary picture:

 

Hey, that was a top 5 team losing to 1-AA. Get some perspective.

 

Chef, what's the Black Death?

Latoya Jackson, children

 

Flood. Long time ago.

Something about 40 days and nights of rain.

Not sure about the actual number of dead, but just call it "entire world population minus 2."

 

The Great Chinese Famine, under Mao, is the very definiton of "Man-Made Disaster."

The official estimated death toll in this period is about 15 million dead of starvation out of a total 40 million deaths. Many analysts have estimated that the number of "abnormal deaths" ranged from 10 million to 100 million. Some western analysts such as Patricia Buckley Ebrey estimate that about 20-40 million people had died of starvation caused by bad government policy and natural disasters. J. Banister estimates this number is about 23 million. Li Chengrui, a former minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million (1998). His estimation was based on Ansley J. Coale and Jiang Zhenghua's estimation of 17 million. Cao Shuji estimated 32.5 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Years_of_Natural_Disasters

 

You know, you can't truly put Michigan-Appalachian State on the list without also offering Chaminade-Virginia.

 

Or Ishtar.