2011 East Africa drought

Between July 2011 and mid-2012, a severe drought affected the entire East Africa region.[7] Said to be
"the worst in 60 years",[8] the drought caused a severe food
crisis across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya that threatened the livelihood of 9.5 million
people.[6] Many refugees from southern Somalia fled to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, where
crowded, unsanitary conditions together with severe malnutrition led to a large number of deaths.
[9]
Other countries in East Africa, including Sudan, South Sudanand parts of Uganda, were also
affected by a food crisis.[8][10][11][12]
According to FAO-Somalia, the food crisis in Somalia primarily affected farmers in the south rather
than the northern pastoralists.[13]Human Rights Watch (HRW) consequently noted that most of the
displaced persons belonged to the agro-pastoral Rahanweyn clan and the agricultural Bantu ethnic
minority group.[14] On 20 July, the United Nations officially declared famine in two regions in the
southern part of the country (IPC Phase 5), the first time a famine had been declared in the region by
the UN in nearly thirty years.[15][16] Tens of thousands of people are believed to have died in southern
Somalia before famine was declared.[15] This was mainly a result of Western governments preventing
aid from reaching affected areas in an attempt to weaken the Al-Shabaab militant group, against
whom they were engaged.[17][18]
Although fighting disrupted aid delivery in some areas, a scaling up of relief operations in midNovember had unexpectedly significantly reduced malnutrition and mortality rates in southern
Somalia, prompting the UN to downgrade the humanitarian situation in the Bay, Bakool and Lower
Shabele regions from famine to emergency levels. [19] According to the Lutheran World
Federation, military activities in the country's southern conflict zones had also by early December
2011 greatly reduced the movement of migrants.[20] By February 2012, several thousand people had
also begun returning to their homes and farms. [21] In addition, humanitarian access to rebel-controlled
areas had improved and rainfall had surpassed expectations, improving the prospects of a good
harvest in early 2012.[19]
The 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora
It was one of the most powerful eruptions in recorded history and is classified as a VEI-7 event. The
eruption of the volcano, on the island of Sumbawa in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia),
reached a climax on 10 April 1815[1] and was followed by between six months and three years of
increased steaming and small phreatic eruptions.
The eruption column lowered global temperatures, and some experts believe this led to global cooling
and worldwide harvest failures, sometimes known as the Year Without a Summer in 1816.[2] The
eruption resulted in a brief period of significant climate change that led to various cases of extreme
weather. Several climate forcings coincided and interacted in a systematic manner that has not been
observed since, despite other large eruptions that have occurred since the early Stone Age. Although
the link between the post-eruption climate changes and the Tambora event has been established by
various scientists, the understanding of the processes involved is incomplete. [

Aftermath[edit]
All vegetation on the island was destroyed. Uprooted trees, mixed with pumice ash, washed into the
sea and formed rafts up to 5 km (3.1 mi) across.[5] One pumice raft was found in the Indian Ocean,
near Calcutta on 1 and 3 October 1815.[10] Clouds of thick ash still covered the summit on 23 April.
Explosions ceased on 15 July, although smoke emissions were still observed as late as 23 August.
Flames and rumbling aftershocks were reported in August 1819, four years after the event.
A moderate-sized tsunami struck the shores of various islands in the Indonesian archipelago on 10
April, with a height of up to 4 m (13 ft) in Sanggar around 10 pm.[5] A tsunami of 12 m (3.36.6 ft)
in height was reported in Besuki, East Java, before midnight, and one of 2 metres (6.6 ft) in height in
the Molucca Islands. The total death toll has been estimated to be around 4,600. [11]
The eruption column reached the stratosphere, an altitude of more than 43 km (27 mi).[10] The coarser
ash particles fell one to two weeks after the eruptions, but the finer ash particles stayed in
the atmosphere from a few months up to a few years at altitudes of 1030 km (6.218.6 mi).
[5]
Longitudinal winds spread these fine particles around the globe, creating optical phenomena.
Prolonged and brilliantly coloured sunsets and twilights were frequently seen in London between 28
June and 2 July 1815 and 3 September and 7 October 1815.[5] The glow of the twilight sky typically
appeared orange or red near the horizon and purple or pink above.
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on 26 December with
the epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The shock had a moment magnitude of 9.19.3
and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The underseamegathrust earthquake was caused
when the Indian Plate was subducted by the Burma Plate and triggered a series of devastating
tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people in
14 countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 metres (100 ft) high. It was one
of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Indonesia was the hardest-hit country, followed
by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.
It is the third-largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph and had the longest duration of
faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes.[10] It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much
as 1 centimetre (0.4 inches)[11] and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.[12] Its epicentre
was between Simeulue and mainland Indonesia.[13] The plight of the affected people and
countries prompted a worldwide humanitarian response. In all, the worldwide community donated
more than US$14 billion (2004) in humanitarian aid.[14] The event is known by the scientific
community as the SumatraAndaman earthquake.[15][16]The resulting tsunami was given various
names, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, South Asian tsunami, Indonesian tsunami,
the Christmas tsunami and the Boxing Day tsunami.
1931 China floods
The 1931 China floods or the 1931 Yellow River floods were a series of devastating floods that
occurred in the Republic of China. The floods are generally considered among one of the
deadliest natural disasters ever recorded, and almost certainly the deadliest of the 20th century

(when pandemics and famines are discounted).[2] Estimates of the total death toll range from
145,000[1] to between 3.7 million and 4 million.[3][4][5]
Chinese sources usually indicate the death toll of the Yangtze River overflow at about 145,000, with
flood damage affecting around 28.5 million,[1] while most Western sources give a far higher death toll
of between 3.7 and 4 million people.[2][3][4]
Yangtze River[edit]
The worst period of flooding was from July to August 1931.[4] In July alone, four weather
stations along the Yangtze River reported rain totaling over 600 mm (24 in) for the month.[2]
Huai River[edit]
The Yangtze and Huai River floods soon reached Nanjing, the capital of China at the time. The city,
located on an island in a massive flood zone, suffered catastrophic damage. [2]Millions died of
drowning while some died from starvation or from waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhus.
Wives and daughters were sold by desperate residents, and cases of infanticide and
even cannibalism were reported in stark details to the government. [2] Some of the areas affected
included Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Wuhan, and Chongqing. The high-water mark was reached on 19
August at Hankou town in Wuhan, with the water level exceeding 53 ft (16 m) above normal.
Comparatively, this is an average of 5.6 ft (1.7 m) above the Shanghai Bund.[2][6] On the evening of 25
August 1931, the water rushing through the Grand Canal washed away dikes near Gaoyou Lake.
Some 200,000 people drowned in their sleep in the resulting deluge. [2]

The Great Galveston Hurricane

it was a Category 4 storm, with winds of up to 145 mph (233 km/h), which made landfall on
September 8, 1900, in Galveston, Texas, in the United States, leaving about 6,000 to 12,000 dead. It
remains to the present day the deadliest single day event in US history.
The hurricane appears to have started as an atmospheric trough from West Africa, causing unsettled
weather in the Caribbean, and emerging into the Florida Straits as a tropical storm on September 5.
Owing to contradictory forecasts, the people of Galveston felt no alarm until the official hurricane
warning of September 7. Next morning a storm surge of 15 ft (4.6 m) washed over the long, flat
island-city which was only 8 ft (2.4 m) above sea level, knocking buildings off their foundations and
destroying over 3,600 homes.
The disaster ended the Golden Era of Galveston, as the hurricane alarmed potential investors, who
turned to Houston instead. The whole island of Galveston was presently[clarification needed] raised by 17 ft
(5.2 m) and a 10 sq mi (26 km2) seawall erected.
Deadliest US hurricane[edit]
The Hurricane of 1900, also known as the Great Galveston Hurricane, [1] made landfall on September
8, 1900, in Galveston, Texas, in the United States.[2] It had estimated winds of 145 miles per hour

(233 km/h) at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the SaffirSimpson Hurricane Scale. It was
the deadliest hurricane in US history, and the second costliest hurricane in U.S. history based on the
dollar's 2005 value (to compare costs with those of Hurricane Katrina and others).
The hurricane caused great loss of life with a death toll of between 6,000 and 12,000 people;[3] the
number most cited in official reports is 8,000, giving the storm the third-highest number of deaths or
injuries of any Atlantic hurricane, after the Great Hurricane of 1780 and 1998's Hurricane Mitch. The
Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States. The
second-deadliest storm to strike the United States, the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, caused more than
2,500 deaths, and the deadliest storm of recent times, Hurricane Katrina, claimed the lives of
approximately 1,800 people.
The hurricane occurred before the practice of assigning official code names to tropical storms was
instituted, and thus it is commonly referred to under a variety of descriptive names. Typical names for
the storm include the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the Great Galveston Hurricane, and, especially in
older documents, the Galveston Flood. It is often referred to by Galveston locals as the Great Storm or
the 1900 Storm.