Unfortunately, these things happen. No, probably right words to describe them, and God forbid to be in similar situations.

We present to your attention the most terrible disasters in the world.

The worst plane crash ever

The rating "The most terrible plane crashes" is headed by Tenerife. The fatal collision of 2 Boeing-747 aircraft belonging to different companies (Boeing-747-206B - the brainchild of KLM, operated the next flight KL4805 and Boeing-747 - the property of Pan American, operated flight 1736), happened on March 27, 1977 on the island of the Canary Islands , Tenerife, on the runway of Los Rodeos airport. Many people died - 583 people who were in these two planes. What exactly caused such a devastating accident? The paradox is that the imposition of unfavorable circumstances on each other played a cruel joke.

On that ill-fated Sunday spring day, Los Rodeos airport was very congested. Both aircraft were maneuvering on a narrow runway, including complex 135-180-degree turns. Interference in radio communication with the controller and between pilots, poor weather conditions and visibility, misinterpretation of commands by the air traffic controller, the strong Spanish accent of the controller - all this inevitably led to disaster. The Boeing KLM commander did not understand the dispatcher's command to abort the takeoff, at a time when the commander of the second Boeing reported that their huge aircraft was still moving along the runway. Fourteen seconds later, the inevitable collision occurred, the fuselage of the Pan American Boeing was badly damaged, gaps formed in some places, and some passengers escaped through them. A Boeing KLM without a tail and with damaged wings fell onto the runway 150 meters from the point of impact and drove along the runway for another 300 meters. Both affected aircraft caught fire.

All 248 people from the Boeing KLM aircraft died. The second plane lost 326 passengers and nine crew members. In this most terrible plane crash, the American star of Playboy magazine, actress and model Eve Meyer, also died.

The worst man-made disaster

The most terrible disaster in the entire history of oil production - an explosion on the Piper Alpha oil platform, built in 1976. It happened on 07/06/1988. According to experts, this terrible accident cost 3.4 billion US dollars and claimed the lives of 167 people. Piper Alpha is the only burnt oil platform on Earth, owned by the American oil company Occidental Petroleum. There was a huge gas leak and, as a result, a colossal explosion. This happened as a result of ill-conceived actions of the maintenance personnel - the pipelines from the platform fed the general oil pipeline network, the supply of oil products was not stopped immediately after the disaster, waiting for the command of the higher authorities. Therefore, the fire continued due to the burning of gas and oil in the pipes, the fire even engulfed residential complexes. And those who were able to survive after the first explosion were surrounded by flames. Those who jumped into the water were saved.

The worst disaster on the water

If you remember the biggest disasters on the water, then you immediately remember the pictures from the movie "Titanic", which is based on real events in 1912. But the sinking of the Titanic is not the biggest disaster. The greatest maritime disaster was the sinking of the German ship "Wilhelm Gustlov" by a Soviet military submarine on 01/30/1945. There were almost 9,000 people on board the ship: 3,700 of them had completed elite training for military submariners, 3-4,000 representatives of the military elite who had been evacuated from Danzig. The tourist sightseeing ship was built in 1938. It was, as it seemed, an unsinkable 9-deck ocean liner, designed according to the latest technologies of that time.

Dance floors, 2 theaters, swimming pools, a church, a gym, restaurants, a cafe with a winter garden and climate control, comfortable cabins and personal apartments of Hitler himself. With a length of 208 meters, he could go half the world without refueling. He could not sink a priori. But fate decreed otherwise. Under the command of A. I. Marinesko, the crew of the Soviet submarine S-13 conducted military operation to destroy an enemy ship. Three torpedoes fired pierced the Wilhelm Gustloff. It immediately sank in the Baltic Sea. Until now, no one in the whole world can forget the most terrible catastrophe.

The biggest environmental disaster

The most terrible catastrophe from an ecological point of view of ecology is the death of Aral Sea, which, before the start of drying up, scientists called the fourth lake by world standards. Although the sea is located on the territory former USSR, the disaster affected the disaster on the whole world. Water was taken from it in uncontrolled volumes for irrigation of fields and gardens in order to ensure the fulfillment of political ambitions and unreasonable plans of Soviet leaders.
With time coastline moved so deep into the lake that many species of fish and animals died, more than 60,000 people lost their jobs, shipping stopped, the climate changed - droughts became more frequent.

Worst nuclear disaster ever

Great amount people are exposed to nuclear disasters. So in April 1986, one of the power units exploded Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Radioactive substances released into the atmosphere settled on nearby villages and cities. This accident is one of the most devastating of its kind. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the liquidation of the accident. Several hundred people died or were injured. A thirty-kilometer exclusion zone has been formed around the nuclear power plant. So far, the scale of the disaster has not been clarified.

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There have always been catastrophes: environmental, man-made. A lot has happened in the last hundred years.

Biggest water disasters

People have been crossing the seas and oceans for hundreds of years. During this time there were many shipwrecks.

So, for example, in 1915, a German submarine fired a torpedo and blew up a British passenger liner. It happened near the Irish coast. The ship sank within minutes. About 1200 people died.

In 1944, the year the disaster occurred right in the port of Bombay. During the unloading of the ship there was a powerful explosion. The cargo ship contained explosives, gold bars, sulfur, timber and cotton. It was the burning cotton, scattered within a radius of one kilometer, that caused the fire of all ships in the port, warehouses and even many city facilities. The city burned for two weeks. 1300 people died, more than 2000 were injured. The port entered its working mode only 7 months after the disaster.

most famous and major disaster on the water is the wreck of the famous Titanic. He went under water during his first voyage. The giant was unable to change course when an iceberg appeared directly in front of him. The liner sank, and with it one and a half thousand people.

At the end of 1917, the French and Norwegian ships collided - Mont Blanc and Imo. The French ship was fully loaded with explosives. A powerful explosion, along with the port, destroyed part of the city of Halifax. The consequences of this explosion in human lives: 2,000 dead and 9,000 injured. This explosion is considered the most powerful until the advent of nuclear weapons.

In 1916, the Germans torpedoed a French ship. 3130 people died. After the attack on the German hospital afloat "General Steuben" 3,600 people died.

At the beginning of 1945, a submarine under the command of Marinesko launched a torpedo into the German liner Wilhelm Gustlov, which was carrying passengers. At least 9,000 people died.

The largest disasters in Russia

Several disasters occurred on the territory of our country, which, in terms of their scale, are considered the largest in the history of the existence of the state. These include an accident railway near Ufa. An accident occurred on the pipeline, which was located next to the railway track. As a result of the fuel mixture accumulated in the air, an explosion occurred at the moment when the passenger trains met. 654 people died and about 1,000 were injured.

On the territory of Russia, the largest ecological catastrophy not only in the country, but all over the world. It's about about the Aral Sea, which has practically dried up. This was facilitated by many factors, including social and soil. The Aral Sea disappeared in some half a century. In the 60s of the last century fresh water tributaries of the Aral Sea were used in many areas in agriculture. By the way, the Aral Sea was considered one of the largest lakes in the world. Now dry land takes its place.

Another indelible mark on the history of the fatherland was left by the flood in 2012 in the city of Krymsk, Krasnodar Territory. Then, in two days, as much precipitation fell as falls in 5 months. Due to the natural disaster, 179 people died, and 34,000 local residents were affected.

The largest nuclear disaster

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 went down in history not only Soviet Union but all over the world. The power unit of the station exploded. As a result, there was a powerful release of radiation into the atmosphere. To date, within a radius of 30 km from the epicenter of the explosion is considered an exclusion zone. There is still no exact data on the consequences of this terrible catastrophe.

Also, a nuclear explosion occurred in 2011, when the nuclear reactor at Fukushima-1 failed. It happened due to strong earthquake in Japan. A huge amount of radiation entered the atmosphere.

The biggest disasters in the history of mankind

In 2010, an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. After a stunning fire, the platform quickly went under water, but the oil poured into the ocean for another 152 days. According to scientists, the area covered with oil slick amounted to 75,000 square kilometers.

The most terrible global catastrophe in terms of the number of deaths was the explosion of a chemical plant. It happened in the Indian city of Bhapol in 1984. 18 thousand people died a large number of people received exposure.

In 1666, a fire broke out in London, which is still considered the most powerful fire in history. The fire wiped out 70,000 houses and claimed the lives of 80,000 residents of the city. It took 4 days to put out the fire.

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Nature often presents us with unpleasant surprises. And it happens that these "surprises" turn into monstrous consequences and the death of a large number of people. In this article, we will look at the worst natural disasters in the world, including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and fires.

1556 CHINA EARTHQUAKE

On January 23, 1556, an earthquake occurred in China, Shaanxi province, which caused the death of eight hundred and thirty thousand people. According to experts, the power of this earthquake corresponds to eight points, in terms of the number of deaths, this incident is one of the three most terrible. natural disasters world, throughout recorded human history.

All residential buildings were destroyed, several architectural monuments were destroyed. The destruction affected the territory within a radius of five hundred kilometers from the epicenter.

Such a large number of deaths from this disaster is due to the following reasons:

• The territory of China has been quite densely populated throughout its history;
• At that time, most citizens lived in fairly simple houses that did not have high strength, and even more so resistance to seismic shocks. In addition, they stood on loose ground and quickly fell into the ground;
• The earthquake occurred at five in the morning, when most of the people were in their homes. In addition, such a time made it somewhat difficult to timely detect signs of an earthquake.

LANDSLIDE IN THE PAMIRS NEAR THE VILLAGE OF USOY

The landslide that occurred in 1911, near the village of Usoy, is considered the most powerful in the entire twentieth century. Unfortunately, since this catastrophe took place in a remote corner of Russia, this catastrophe became known only after two months.

The landslide area was surveyed only in 1913, and because of this, some features of this disaster remained unknown. In addition, the exact date of this incident is still unknown.

However, it is well known that the cause of the landslide was an earthquake.

The Pamir landslide, which consisted of rocks and clay, completely covered the village of Usoy, which killed all its inhabitants, namely 54 people. In addition, the rocks that came down from the mountains completely filled up the valley and blocked the Mughrab River, as a result of which a new large lake was formed.

Collateral damage caused by the landslide was a gradual rise in water in the newly formed lake, which caused flooding of the nearby village of Sarez. After some time, the water was able to break through a new channel in the landslide mass, which equalized the outflow and inflow, which made it possible to create a constant water level.

As a result of this incident, the Pamir landslide is undoubtedly one of the largest natural disasters in the world.

FLOODS IN CHINA IN 1931

In 1931, a series of floods occurred in south-central China, which are among the most famous natural disasters in the world. These incidents have caused the death of between 145,000 and four million people.

Between 1928 and 1930 there was a very severe drought in China, and the subsequent winter of 1930-31 was very snowy. Snowmelt and a large amount of spring rains caused the rivers to overflow. The showers continued into the summer and peaked in August.

Because of this, the most major rivers China - Yangtze, Huanghe, Huaihe. The water flooded and almost completely destroyed the city of Nanjing, which at that time was the capital of China.

On August 19, the water level exceeded the norm by sixteen meters, and on the evening of August 25, the Grand Canal was flooded, the dams were washed away, which caused the death of two hundred thousand people in one night.

The inability to quickly bury the dead caused an epidemic of typhus and cholera, and due to lack of food, cases of cannibalism and infanticide began.

FLOOD IN PETERSBURG IN 1824

The most destructive flood in the history of St. Petersburg occurred on November 7, 1824. And although floods are not an unusual phenomenon for the city on the Neva, this event undoubtedly belongs to the worst natural disasters in Russia.

On November 7, 1824, heavy rain was pouring in St. Petersburg, which was complemented by a cold and damp wind. In the evening, the bad weather began to intensify, and a rapid rise in water began in the canals, which quickly attracted the attention of citizens, as the water rose by more than four meters. The total damage from this catastrophe at that time was estimated at 15-20 million rubles.

• 462 houses were destroyed and 3681 damaged;
• More than 3,600 head of livestock died;
• Between 200 and 600 people drowned, and many went missing.

1755 LISBON EARTHQUAKE

One of the most terrible and grandiose disasters in the world is without a doubt the Great Lisbon earthquake, which occurred on November 1, 1755 at 9:20 am. And this is not surprising because because of this incident, the capital of Portugal, Lisbon, was completely destroyed.

In just six minutes, about eighty thousand people died. It is also impossible not to say that seismic tremors caused tsunamis and fires. According to experts, the power of this earthquake corresponds to 8.7 points. Its epicenter was in the Atlantic Ocean, at a distance of 200 kilometers from Cape San Vincente.

Lisbon was not the only city affected by the disaster. The shocks were felt in all the southern regions of the country, and reached Finland and North Africa. Tsunamis caused by the earthquake hit the islands of Barbados and Martinique and the coast of North Africa.

It should be noted that this earthquake was a powerful impetus to the emergence of modern seismology.

Hurricane San Calistco 1780

Hurricane San Calistico is one of the deadliest weather disasters on record in the North Atlantic basin. The hurricane raged from October 10 to October 16, 1780. More than twenty-seven and a half thousand people became its victims. Unfortunately, exact data on its strength and trajectory are unknown, since the database began to be maintained from 1851.

It originated near the Cape Verde Islands, and began to grow and intensify as it moved west. First, the hurricane hit Barbados, at which point the wind speed exceeded 320 kilometers per hour. After that, the elements hit Martinique, St. Eustatius and Saint Lucia. With each new city through which the hurricane passed, the number of victims increased by thousands. Apart from settlements the elements damaged the fleets of Great Britain and France.

The total number of casualties from Hurricane San Calistico is the largest such weather event ever recorded, making it one of the most notorious natural disasters in the world.

HURRICANE MITCH

Hurricane Mitch ranks as the second strongest to date for weather incidents occurring in the Atlantic Basin. It was formed on October 22, 1998, in the western Caribbean Sea.

Nicaragua and Honduras suffered the most from the violence of the elements. The hurricane caused the death of eleven thousand people, while about the same number are considered missing. In addition, this catastrophe displaced two million seven hundred thousand people.

In addition to the direct damage caused by the hurricane, up to eighty percent of Honduras' infrastructure was destroyed. Roads and bridges were destroyed, airports were destroyed, because of this, the supply of food, water and medicine was significantly hampered, which led to severe famine, the spread of diseases such as cholera, tropical fever and malaria. The total property damage from the hurricane in Honduras exceeds one billion dollars.

Nicaragua became the second state in terms of the amount of damage caused. The heavy rains that accompanied Hurricane Mitch caused Casita Lake to overflow and flood nearby villages with mud. Just like in Honduras, the violence of the elements caused famine and the emergence of various diseases.

Countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala were less affected, with several hundred deaths and much of the sugarcane, coffee and cereal crops destroyed.

One of the main reasons for such high destruction is that this hurricane was not detected immediately, even despite the available technical resources.

Hurricane Katrina

This hurricane is rightfully considered the most powerful in US history. According to scientists, it is the sixth strongest known Atlantic Basin hurricane, and belongs to the fifth category on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and undoubtedly belongs to the most famous natural disasters in the world.

Hurricane Katrina began forming on August 23, 2005, near the Bahamas. It should be noted that as the hurricane moved towards the coast, it weakened somewhat, and its wind speed reached 280 km / h.

The worst damage was done to cities such as New Orleans and Louisiana, in which approximately 80% of the city was under water. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-six people died, and the total economic damage amounted to $125 billion, according to a 2007 estimate.

It should be noted that most of the victims of this disaster are citizens who lived below the poverty line and did not have money to pay for moving and hotels. Wherein public services, although they declared the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama as natural disaster zones, they were in no hurry to help those who could not do it on their own evacuate.

In New Orleans, by the time Hurricane Katrina approached, one hundred and fifty thousand people remained who lived in poor areas. The city authorities offered them the Superdome stadium as a haven, in which thirty thousand people were able to take refuge.

Eruption of Krakatau Volcano

Krakatau was an active Indonesian volcano located in the Malay Archipelago between Java and Sumatra. Until 1883, it was a large island.

In May 1883, a powerful eruption began, which is one of the worst natural disasters. Explosions and ejections of rocks continued until the end of August, and led to the devastation of the "underground chamber" under the volcano. Last powerful explosion occurred on August 27, while the ash column reached a height of 30 km. Its power was equivalent to two hundred megatons of TNT, ten thousand times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. According to various sources, the shock wave went around the earth from seven to eleven times.

The island was almost completely destroyed by the island, and the rising tsunamis were up to thirty meters high, and their impact led to the destruction of 295 cities and villages, and the death of thirty-six thousand people.

In addition, volcanic ash rose into the atmosphere to a height of up to eighty kilometers, and remained in it for several years. Fortunately, the most noticeable effect of such a release for most people was the intense coloration of the dawns.

HURRICANE IRMA, 2017

The ranking of the largest natural disasters would not be complete enough without the powerful tropical hurricane Irma. It hit the Antilles and the Virgin Islands, bringing destruction to Cuba, Florida, the Bahamas. The economic damage from Hurricane Irma is estimated at $ 65 billion, the death toll is 134 people.

Hurricane Irma destroyed buildings and infrastructure, thousands of people were left homeless, and transport links were disrupted. Only in the state of Florida (USA) almost a quarter of the population, over 6 million people, was evacuated.

Hurricane Irma was not the only devastating natural disaster in 2017: to the southeastern part of Texas (USA) and the Atlantic coast South America Hurricanes Harvey and Maria hit. The economic damage from Hurricane Harvey is estimated at $ 70 billion, the death toll is 83 people.

Overall, 2017 is considered the most disruptive year in terms of scale. natural disasters, following the Atlantic hurricanes, large forest fires occurred in California (USA), as well as a series of hurricanes in Europe.

Every year, dozens of terrible man-made disasters occur in the world, which cause significant harm to the world ecology. Today I invite you to read about a few of them in the continuation of the post.

Petrobrice is the Brazilian state oil company. The company headquarters is located in Rio de Janeiro. In July 2000, in Brazil, a disaster at an oil refinery spilled more than a million gallons of oil (about 3,180 tons) into the Iguazu River. For comparison, 50 tons of crude oil recently spilled near a resort island in Thailand.
The resulting stain moved downstream, threatening to poison the drinking water for several cities at once. The liquidators of the accident built several protective barriers, but they managed to stop the oil only at the fifth. One part of the oil was collected from the surface of the water, the other went through specially constructed diversion channels.
Petrobrice paid a $56 million fine to the state budget and $30 million to the state budget.

On September 21, 2001, an explosion occurred at the AZF chemical plant in Toulouse, France, the consequences of which are considered one of the largest man-made disasters. Exploded 300 tons of ammonium nitrate (salt of nitric acid), which were in the warehouse of finished products. According to the official version, the management of the plant is to blame, which did not ensure the safe storage of an explosive substance.
The consequences of the disaster were gigantic: 30 people died, total number more than 300 people were injured, thousands of houses and buildings were destroyed or damaged, including almost 80 schools, 2 universities, 185 kindergartens, 40,000 people were left without a roof over their heads, more than 130 enterprises actually ceased their activities. The total amount of damage is 3 billion euros.

On November 13, 2002, off the coast of Spain, the oil tanker Prestige fell into a severe storm, in the holds of which there were more than 77,000 tons of fuel oil. As a result of the storm, a crack about 50 meters long formed in the ship's hull. On November 19, the tanker broke in half and sank. As a result of the disaster, 63,000 tons of fuel oil fell into the sea.

Cleaning the sea and coasts from fuel oil cost 12 billion dollars, the full damage to the ecosystem cannot be estimated.

On August 26, 2004, a fuel truck carrying 32,000 liters of fuel fell off a 100-meter-high Wiehltal bridge near Cologne in western Germany. After the fall, the tanker exploded. The culprit of the accident was a sports car that skidded on a slippery road, which caused the fuel tanker to skid.
This accident is considered one of the most costly man-made disasters in history - temporary repairs to the bridge cost $40 million, and full reconstruction - $318 million.

March 19, 2007 due to a methane explosion at the Ulyanovsk mine in Kemerovo region 110 people died. Following the first explosion, four more explosions followed in 5-7 seconds, which caused extensive collapses in the workings in several places at once. The chief engineer and almost all the management of the mine died. This accident is the largest in Russian coal mining over the past 75 years.

August 17, 2009 technological disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, located on the Yenisei River. This happened during the repair of one of the HPP's hydroelectric units. As a result of the accident, the 3rd and 4th water conduits were destroyed, the wall was destroyed and the engine room was flooded. 9 out of 10 hydraulic turbines were completely out of order, the hydroelectric power station was stopped.
Due to the accident, the power supply to the Siberian regions was disrupted, including the limited supply of electricity in Tomsk, and several Siberian aluminum smelters were cut off. As a result of the disaster, 75 people died and 13 were injured.

Damage from the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP exceeded 7.3 billion rubles, including environmental damage. The other day in Khakassia, a trial began on the case of a man-made disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station in 2009.

October 4, 2010 in the west of Hungary there was a major environmental disaster. At a large aluminum smelter, an explosion destroyed the dam of a reservoir of toxic waste - the so-called red mud. About 1.1 million cubic meters of caustic substance flooded the cities of Kolontar and Decever, 160 kilometers west of Budapest, with a 3-meter stream.

Red mud is a residue that forms during the production of alumina. When it comes into contact with the skin, it acts on it like an alkali. As a result of the disaster, 10 people died, about 150 received various injuries and burns.

April 22, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of the US state of Louisiana, after an explosion that killed 11 people and a 36-hour fire, the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform sank.

The oil leak was stopped only on August 4, 2010. About 5 million barrels of crude oil spilled into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The platform on which the accident occurred belonged to a Swiss company, and at the time of the man-made disaster, the platform was operated by British Petroleum.

On March 11, 2011, in the northeast of Japan, at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, after a strong earthquake, the largest accident in the last 25 years after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred. Following the 9.0 magnitude tremors, a huge tsunami wave came to the coast, which damaged 4 out of 6 reactors nuclear power plant and disabled the cooling system, which led to a series of hydrogen explosions, melting the core.

The total emissions of iodine-131 and caesium-137 after the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant amounted to 900,000 terabecquerels, which does not exceed 20% of the emissions after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, which then amounted to 5.2 million terabecquerels.
Experts estimated the total damage from the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant at $74 billion. The complete elimination of the accident, including the dismantling of the reactors, will take about 40 years.

NPP "Fukushima-1"

On July 11, 2011, an explosion occurred at a naval base near Limassol in Cyprus, which claimed 13 lives and brought the island nation to the brink of economic crisis, destroying the island's largest power plant.
Investigators accused the President of the Republic, Dimitris Christofias, of negligently handling the problem of storing ammunition confiscated in 2009 from the Monchegorsk ship on suspicion of arms smuggling to Iran. In fact, the ammunition was stored right on the ground on the territory of the naval base and detonated due to the high temperature.

Destroyed Mari power plant in Cyprus

On February 28, 2012, an explosion occurred at a chemical plant in the Chinese province of Hebei, killing 25 people. An explosion took place in the shop for the production of nitroguanidine (it is used as rocket fuel) at the chemical plant of the Hebei Keer company in the city of Shijiazhuang

April 18, 2013 in the US city of West, Texas at the fertilizer plant there was a powerful explosion.
Almost 100 buildings in the district were destroyed, from 5 to 15 people died, about 160 people were injured, and the town itself became like a war zone or the set of another Terminator movie.

Majority explanatory dictionaries interprets the basic meaning of the word "catastrophe" as an event with tragic consequences. It is precisely such events that still terrify our contemporaries with their scale and the number of dead people and animals, the history of our planet has not so few. The most terrible catastrophes sometimes influenced the further development of the affected countries or even the entire civilization.

With the development of technology, people began to develop such ocean spaces that were unsuitable for their existence, and then turned their dreams and aspirations to the sky. With the advent of huge ocean cruisers, multi-seat passenger airliners, the number of those killed and injured in disasters has significantly increased. In the last century, man-made disasters have been added, which can also be called one of the largest.

The largest air crash in civil aviation

Tenerife is one of the worst air crashes, which resulted in the death of 583 people. It all happened on March 27, 1977, directly on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport, located near the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands). All passengers of the Boeing KLM were killed, including 14 crew members, with the exception of one passenger, Robina Van Lanscot, who decided to interrupt the flight to meet a friend and got off in Tenerife. But on board the Boeing Pan American after the crash were survivors. 61 people managed to escape - 54 passengers and 7 crew members.

Due to the terrorist attack that occurred the day before at the largest airport in the Canary Islands, Las Palmas, it was closed, and Los Rodeos Airport was heavily overloaded due to these events. It was a day off, a lot of planes, rejected by Las Palmas, filled all the stops. Some of them were on taxiways. The reasons that led to the terrible disaster are known:

• fog, visibility was initially limited to 300 meters, and a little later became even less;
• lack of lights on the borders of the runway and taxiway;
• the strong Spanish accent of the dispatcher, which the pilots did not understand well, asked again and clarified his orders;
• the lack of coordinated actions on the part of the pilots when negotiating with the controller, they entered into a conversation and interrupted each other.

KLM subsequently claimed responsibility for the tragedy and paid substantial compensation to the families of the victims and those affected.

On May 5, 1937, a German cruise ship was launched, named after Wilhelm Gustloff, one of the leaders of the Swiss National Socialists, who had died the year before.

The passenger liner had ten decks, was designed for 1.5 thousand people, it was served by 417 crew members. The ship was built using the most advanced technologies, and it was very comfortable. The liner was intended, first of all, for long and leisurely cruises. In 1939, the Wilhelm Gustloff was handed over to the German Navy. Soon he became a floating hospital, and then after 1940 he was assigned to the school of submariners in Gotenhafen. His color again became camouflage, and he lost the protection of the Hague Convention.

After the torpedo attack, which was carried out by the Soviet submarine under the command of A.I. Marinescu, "Wilhelm Gustloff" sank off the coast of Poland on January 30, 1945. According to official figures, 5,348 people died, however, the exact number of passengers remained unknown.

On November 7, 1941, near the coast of Crimea, the Nazi aircraft sank the Soviet ship "Armenia", on board of which, presumably, there were more than 3,000 people.

From the point of view of ecology, one of the major disasters- decrease in the level of the Aral Sea and its shrinkage. The so-called Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake on the planet after the Caspian Sea (which, due to its isolation, can be qualified as a lake), the Upper Lake in North America and Lake Victoria in Africa.

But after the flow of the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers, which fed the Aral, began to climb through the irrigation systems built, the lake became shallow. In the summer of 2014, its eastern part almost dried up, the volume of water decreased to 10%.

All this led to climate change, which became continental. On the protruding bottom of the former sea, the sandy-salt desert Aralkum appeared. dust storms they carry the smallest particles of salt interspersed with pesticides and agricultural fertilizers, which at one time got into the Aral Sea from the fields through the rivers and can adversely affect the health of people and animals. Because of the salinity, most species of marine life have disappeared, ports have closed, people have lost their jobs.

To such disasters, affecting their disastrous consequences the population of the entire planet, first of all it is necessary to attribute the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. During the explosion of the fourth nuclear reactor, it was completely destroyed. Work on the elimination of the consequences has not yet been completed. After April 26, 1986, all people were evacuated from the crash site within a radius of 30 km - 135,000 people and 35,000 livestock. A protected exclusion zone was created. From radioactive substances that got into the air, Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia suffered the most. In other countries, an increase in the radioactive background was also noted. More than 600,000 people participated in the aftermath of this disaster.

The largest earthquake in Japan, which occurred on March 11, 2011, and then the tsunami, caused the radiation accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, which has the highest, seventh level. External power supply facilities and backup diesel generators were disabled, which led to a failure in the cooling system, and then the meltdown of the reactor core at Units 1, 2, and 3. The entire financial damage, which includes decontamination work, compensation to victims and internally displaced persons, is approximately $189 billion.

Another catastrophe that affected the state of the entire biosphere of the Earth is the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, which occurred on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill caused by the accident was the largest ever. At the time of the explosion itself and in the ensuing fire at the semi-submersible unit, 11 people died and 17 out of 126 were injured, who were on the platform at that moment. Two more died later. Oil flowed into the bay for 152 days, in total more than 5 million barrels fell into the bay. This man-made disaster had a detrimental effect on the ecology of the entire region. Various species of marine animals, fish and birds have been affected. And in the north of the Gulf of Mexico in the same year, an increased mortality of cetaceans was recorded. In addition to oil, on the surface of the water (the size of the spot reached 75,000 km²), a large number of underwater oil plumes formed, the length of which reached 16 km, and the width and height, respectively, 5 km and 90 m.

These are just a few terrible accidents that can be classified as the worst disasters in the history of mankind. But there were still others, sometimes less known, that brought people a lot of destruction and misfortune. Often these catastrophes were caused by war or a whole series of accidents, and in some cases the destructive force of nature brought grief.