Sentinel Digital Desk
It covered tens of thousands of square miles, flooding rice fields and various cities, including Nanjing and Wuhan. The flood affected more than 50 million people. Government organizations, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, estimated the death toll to have been about 3.7 million people.
On January 12, 2010, an earthquake hit Haiti about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of the capital city, Port-au-Prince. The earthquake registered a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale and was followed by aftershocks that registered magnitudes of 5.9 and 5.5. There has been debate about the total number of deaths caused by this earthquake, but estimates suggest that about 200,000–300,000 people died.
The Banqiao Dam had been built in the early 1950s in an effort to control the Huang He (Yellow River), but Typhoon Nina produced floods twice as intense as the flood levels the dam was able to withstand. According to death toll reports, at least 26,000 people died in the floods. An estimated 145,000 people died from epidemics caused by water contamination and famine. The number of people affected by the disaster exceeded 10,000,000.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 struck the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area about noon on September 1, 1923. The death toll from the temblor was estimated to have exceeded 140,000. Most of those deaths were caused by subsequent widespread fires.
On October 8, 2005, a disastrous earthquake struck the Pakistan-administered portion of the Kashmir region, the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, and adjacent parts of India and Afghanistan. In Kashmir at least 79,000 people were killed, and more than 32,000 buildings collapsed.
The Great Galveston Storm occurred on September 8, 1900, when a hurricane with an estimated strength of Category 4 hit Galveston, Texas. More than 8,000 people were killed, and 10,000 were left homeless