In 1957, in an English seaside town, a new type of disaster occurred when a fire broke out at the Windscale nuclear reactors. The fire, at the two-reactor facility in Cumbria (now Sellafield), was due to poor design and gross mismanagement, leading to deadly consequences. The incident became embroiled in Cold War-era secrecy and provedContinue reading “The Windscale Nuclear Disaster – Britain’s Chernobyl”
Category Archives: Historical Disasters
The MV Doña Paz – the Worst Maritime Disaster in History
While the Titanic may be the most famous shipwreck, its death toll was but a third of the world’s deadliest, taking the lives of over 4,300 souls. Just five days before Christmas, the MV Doña Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, burnt to the water line, and sank in the Philippine Sea. “Asia’s Titanic”Continue reading “The MV Doña Paz – the Worst Maritime Disaster in History”
The Great Bengal Famine and the Boston Tea Party
The Indian Famine of 1770 is one of the greatest disasters in human history. Over ten million people, a third of the population of Bengal, died. A drought lasting 5 years, bad harvests, and cruel British rule all contributed. The British East India Company compounded the famine with heavy taxation, leading to millions of BengalisContinue reading “The Great Bengal Famine and the Boston Tea Party”
The Ignored and Forgotten Lake Nyos Disaster
The 1986 Lake Nyos Disaster occurred when volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2) gas erupted from beneath an African lake in Cameroon, bubbling to the surface, forming a deadly cloud. There was no huge eruption, no great boom or blast that evening. What resulted was like a scene from a horror movie. The deadly gas flowed downContinue reading “The Ignored and Forgotten Lake Nyos Disaster”
The Forgotten Sinking of the Empress of Ireland
Just two years after the Titanic, and a year before Lusitania, another passenger ship sank with an even greater loss of life, yet few remember the tragic tale. The Empress of Ireland sank in Canada’s St. Lawrence River in the spring of 1914 after colliding with another ship in a dense fog bank in theContinue reading “The Forgotten Sinking of the Empress of Ireland”
The Tragic Sinking of China’s SS Kiangya
On the night of December 4th,1948, the passenger steamship SS Kiangya exploded and sank just north of Shanghai, China. It was the world’s worst non-military maritime disaster at the time. The steamship blew up at the mouth of the Yangtze River, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Shanghai and rapidly sank. The suspected cause – a mineContinue reading “The Tragic Sinking of China’s SS Kiangya”
The Great White Hurricane – the Terrible Blizzard of 88
Few winter storms are as legendary as the American Blizzard of 88, dumping 55 inches (140 cm) of snow in the northeast U.S. It was the snowiest, coldest and deadliest, winter storm in American history. From March 11-13, 1888, over 400 souls perished, including 200 in New York City alone. Many people were literally buried inContinue reading “The Great White Hurricane – the Terrible Blizzard of 88”
The New York Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Killed 146
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, situated at the corner of Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village. On 25 March 1911 at 4:40 pm, a fire broke out on the eighth floor, The flames then rapidly consumed both it and the twoContinue reading “The New York Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Killed 146”
The German Reichstag Fire Sparked Hitler’s Rise to Power
On 27 February 1933, the German parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, went up in flames from an arson attack. Adolf Hitler skillfully harnessed the after effects of the Reichstag Fire to seize absolute power. Hitler claimed the fire was a Communist attempt to overthrow the government. He played upon public and political fears of chaosContinue reading “The German Reichstag Fire Sparked Hitler’s Rise to Power”
The 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster
On Sunday 27 March 1977, just after 5:00 PM, two 747 jumbo jets collided during take-off on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport in the Canary Islands off the Spanish coast. The collision caused a massive explosion and both aircraft were engulfed in flames. The Tenerife airport disaster remains the deadliest crash in aviation history.Continue reading “The 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster”