We want to think that tragedies at least teach us something - like helping each other through difficult situations and apply joint efforts to solve problems.
But sometimes, even when the disaster is over, the tragedy still continues. People are falling into chaos and making the worst moments in humanity's life even worse. And as a result, the details of the darkest events become so gruesome that they tend to be omitted from history books.
1. Events in Tiananmen Square - China billed the families of the victims for the spent bullets
In 1989, after the death of the controversial government and politician Hu Yaobang, Chinese students took to Tiananmen Square to try to bring about real change in China. They put forward a list of demands and went on a hunger strike in hopes of ending corruption and taking the first steps towards democracy.
However, their efforts were in vain as the army intervened in the situation. By order of the government, soldiers and tanks moved to Tiananmen Square, which is located in the very center of Beijing. In that unequal battle At least 300 students were killed. According to some estimates, the death toll reached 2,700 people.
Usually this is where the story ends, but there is one small detail that makes it even worse. According to some sources, after the murder, the Chinese government billed the families of the victims for the bullets spent. Parents of protesting students had to pay 27 cents (in modern money) for each bullet fired at their child.
The Chinese government denied the accusations against itself. However, there is every reason to believe that the above reports were true.
2. The My Lai Massacre - President Nixon pardoned the man responsible for the crime.
The worst incident that occurred during the Vietnam War is considered mass kill in Songmi. In 1968 American soldiers brutally massacred 350 civilians South Vietnam. They raped women, mutilated children - and did not suffer any punishment for it.
Of all those involved in the murder, only one soldier was charged: William Colley. The court found Colley guilty of murder 22 civilians and sentenced him to life imprisonment. However, he never went to prison. He was put under house arrest, which, however, did not last long. Colley remained under house arrest for only three years before President Richard Nixon pardoned him.
However, this story is not so simple. The man who informed the American authorities about the brutal murder and testified against the people who committed it was named Hugh Thompson. He risked his own life trying to save as many Vietnamese as possible. Thompson received death threats as a reward for his bravery and heroism. Every morning unknown people they left mutilated animals on the porch of his house. For the rest of his life, Thompson was forced to struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
3. Pompeii – It became so hot in the neighboring city that people’s heads could not stand it and literally exploded
The destruction of Pompeii is one of the most notorious natural disasters in human history. The whole city was submerged in the sea volcanic ash, which claimed the lives of thousands of people.
However, compared to Herculaneum, Pompeii, so to speak, got off easy. A man who witnessed a volcanic eruption that occurred in 79 AD described it as follows: terrible disaster: “A huge black cloud descended on the land and sea, accompanied by bright flashes of flame.”
This huge black cloud covered the whole of Herculaneum. Its streets became incredibly hot - the air temperature reached more than 500 degrees Celsius. In such unbearable conditions, people’s skin instantly burned, their bones turned black, and their heads could not stand it and literally exploded.
4. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – Radioactive fallout led to an increase in cancer rates and car accidents
On September 11, 2001, when planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, approximately 3,000 innocent people died. It was the worst terrorist attack in US history. However, over the next few years, the number of its victims increased significantly.
After sad famous events On September 11, 2001, people became afraid to fly on airplanes, causing airline ticket sales to drop by 20 percent. Instead, everyone began to actively use cars, despite the fact that terrestrial view transport is considered more dangerous than air transport. In the twelve months following the attack, nearly 1,600 Americans died in car crashes because they were afraid to fly.
But the worst impact of the events of September 11, 2001 is the increase in cancer rates. The Twin Towers were built from 400 tons of asbestos, which after the explosion turned to dust and spread throughout the city. According to some data, more than 400 thousand people were affected by the asbestos cloud. As a result, cancer rates in New York City have increased significantly since the tragedy. In addition, over 70 percent of the people who helped cope with the consequences of the explosion now suffer from lung problems.
5. Great Famine in Ireland - Queen Victoria forbade the Sultan to help her people
When famine struck Ireland, Majid Abdul Khan, Sultan Ottoman Empire, volunteered to help the country. In 1847, he loaded the ships with food and offered Ireland financial assistance£10,000 to help fight the crisis.
Oddly enough, British diplomats rejected his offer. They explained this by saying that, according to royal protocol, the amount of foreign aid should not exceed the amount that Queen Victoria is willing to sacrifice to save her people. At their request, the Sultan reduced his monetary donation to 1000 pounds sterling.
Be that as it may, the Irish were still delighted with his “gesture of great generosity.” As a token of gratitude, they wrote to him: “For the first time in history, a Muslim ruler representing a large Islamic population shows warm sympathy for a Christian people.”
6. Black Death– The plague led to the genocide of the Jews
The Black Death in the mid-14th century killed between 75 and 200 million people, destroying about a third of Europe's population. It was terrible tragedy, which, oddly enough, was blamed on the Jews.
The fact is that Europeans considered the plague to be part of a Jewish conspiracy. They claimed that the Jews were poisoning the water in wells throughout the country in order to make the Christian people suffer. At first it was just a theory, which later received “confirmation”. The Inquisition began to hunt Jews; they were tortured until they agreed that they were responsible for the plague. After this, the people rebelled. They took children from Jewish families. They tied Jews to poles and burned them alive. During one such incident, more than 2,000 people were killed.
The Black Death, of course, was not part of a Jewish conspiracy, but people believed otherwise. Their revenge spared no one. The city of Strasbourg even passed a law that banned Jews from entering the city for 100 years.
7. Hurricane Katrina – Refusal to help refugees
When in 2005 New Orleans Hurricane Katrina struck, leaving countless people homeless. In search of safer places, they were forced to flee to neighboring cities. The New Orleans police helped them, showing them the way to the bridge that led to the city of Gretna.
However, on the bridge these people encountered an obstacle in the form of four police cars that blocked the road. Police officers stood next to them, holding shotguns. They chased away the refugees, shouting after them: “We don’t need another Superdome here!” According to some reports, they even took food and water from people before driving them away.
Arthur Lawson, Gretna police chief, confirmed the incident. “They don’t belong here,” he commented on his refusal to help refugees from New Orleans.
8. Wounded Knee Massacre - Twenty soldiers were awarded Medals of Honor
In 1890, American troops attacked a Lakota Indian camp. The attack killed approximately 200 innocent men, women and children. The people who did this (this event went down in history as the Massacre at Wounded Knee) were real killers. However, twenty of them were awarded the Medal of Honor. General Miles called it "an insult to the memory of the dead," but his protest came to nothing.
During the award ceremony, Sergeant Toy was told that he was receiving the medal "for gallantry in fighting hostile Indians." In fact, he was rewarded for shooting in the back the fleeing Native Americans who were unarmed. Another soldier, Lieutenant Garlington, received a medal for preventing the victims from escaping. He forced them to hide in a ravine, where they were shot by Lieutenant Gresham.
Sergeant Loyd, one of those soldiers who was awarded the Medal of Honor for the massacre of unarmed Indians, committed suicide two years later - a few days before the anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee. It is not known what prompted him to take his own life. Perhaps it was conscience.
9. Great Fire of London – Townspeople Hanged a Mentally Retarded Man
Everyone who knew Robert Hubert considered him “not a very healthy man.” In all likelihood, he was mentally retarded or mentally ill. He couldn't utter a word English language, and his limbs were paralyzed. But despite all this, he was blamed for the Great Fire of London in 1666 and hanged.
Hubert was out of town when the fire happened. He appeared two days later. The man wandered the streets, constantly repeating the word “Yes!” In 1666, it didn't take much effort to prove a person's guilt. The crowd grabbed Hubert and dragged him to the police station.
There he answered everything that was asked of him with the word “Yes!” He even “confessed” that a Frenchman had paid him a shilling to set London on fire. Hubert agreed with every version, but he was hanged anyway.
Fifteen years later, the captain of the ship showed up and helped Hubert get to London. He told the townspeople that when the Great Fire happened, the poor fellow was not in the city. But by that time it was already too late.
10. “Titanic” – Bills issued to the families of the victims
The British shipping company White Star Line was very frugal. According to the contract, all employees who were on board the ship were fired the very second the Titanic began to sink. The company did not want to pay crew members money for not performing their immediate duties while the ship was sinking.
After the Titanic sank, the families of the victims were informed that they would have to pay the cost of freight if they wanted to recover the bodies of their loved ones. Most of them could not afford this, which is why today many of those who died in the tragedy have memorials instead of graves.
For musicians, things were even worse. The orchestra members, who desperately continued to play even as the ship sank, were registered as independent contractors. This meant that the White Star Line legally had nothing to do with them. The families of other crew members received compensation for the loss of their breadwinners, but the relatives of the dead musicians were not paid a penny. But they were billed for “damaged uniforms.”
Today, the world's attention is drawn to Chile, where a large-scale eruption of the Calbuco volcano began. It's time to remember 7 biggest natural disasters recent years to know what the future may hold. Nature is attacking people like before people stepped on nature.
Eruption of Calbuco volcano. Chile
Mount Calbuco in Chile is a fairly active volcano. However, its last eruption took place more than forty years ago - in 1972, and even then it lasted only one hour. But on April 22, 2015, everything changed for the worse. Calbuco literally exploded, releasing volcanic ash to a height of several kilometers.
You can find a huge number of videos about this on the Internet. amazing beauty spectacle. However, it is pleasant to enjoy the view only through a computer, being thousands of kilometers away from the scene. In reality, being near Calbuco is scary and deadly.
The Chilean government decided to resettle all people within a radius of 20 kilometers from the volcano. And this is only the first measure. It is not yet known how long the eruption will last and what actual damage it will cause. But this will definitely be an amount of several billion dollars.
Earthquake in Haiti
On January 12, 2010, Haiti suffered a disaster of unprecedented scale. Several tremors occurred, the main one of magnitude 7. As a result, almost the entire country was in ruins. Even the presidential palace, one of the most majestic and capital buildings in Haiti, was destroyed.
According to official data, more than 222 thousand people died during the earthquake and after it, and 311 thousand were injured. varying degrees. At the same time, millions of Haitians were left homeless.
This is not to say that magnitude 7 is something unprecedented in the history of seismic observations. The scale of destruction turned out to be so enormous due to the high deterioration of the infrastructure in Haiti, as well as due to the extremely low quality of absolutely all buildings. In addition, the local population itself was in no hurry to provide first aid to the victims, as well as to participate in clearing the rubble and restoring the country.
As a result, an international military contingent was sent to Haiti, which took over control of the state in the first time after the earthquake, when the traditional authorities were paralyzed and extremely corrupt.
Tsunami in the Pacific Ocean
Until December 26, 2004, the vast majority of the world's inhabitants knew about tsunamis exclusively from textbooks and disaster films. However, that day will forever remain in the memory of Humanity because huge wave, which covered the coasts of dozens of states in the Indian Ocean.
It all started with a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1-9.3 that occurred just north of the island of Sumatra. It caused giant wave up to 15 meters high, which spread in all directions of the ocean and meant hundreds of settlements, as well as world-famous seaside resorts, disappeared from the face of the Earth.
Tsunami covered coastal zones in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, South Africa, Madagascar, Kenya, Maldives, Seychelles, Oman and other countries on the coast Indian Ocean. Statisticians counted more than 300 thousand dead in this disaster. At the same time, the bodies of many were never found - the wave carried them into the open ocean.
The consequences of this disaster are colossal. In many places, infrastructure was never fully rebuilt after the 2004 tsunami.
Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption
The unpronounceable Icelandic name Eyjafjallajökull has become one of the most popular words in 2010 year. And all thanks to the eruption of a volcano in the mountain range with this name.Paradoxically, not a single person died during this eruption. But this natural disaster seriously disrupted business life all over the world, primarily in Europe. After all, a huge amount of volcanic ash thrown into the sky from the mouth of Eyjafjallajökull completely paralyzed air traffic in the Old World. The natural disaster destabilized the lives of millions of people in Europe itself, as well as in North America.
Thousands of flights, both passenger and cargo, were cancelled. Daily airline losses during that period amounted to more than $200 million.
Earthquake in China's Sichuan province
As in the case of the earthquake in Haiti, the huge number of victims after a similar disaster in the Chinese province of Sichuan, which occurred there on May 12, 2008, is due to low level capital buildings.
As a result of the main earthquake of magnitude 8, as well as subsequent smaller tremors, more than 69 thousand people died in Sichuan, 18 thousand were missing, and 288 thousand were injured.
At the same time, the Chinese government People's Republic greatly limited international assistance in the disaster zone, it tried to solve the problem with my own hands. According to experts, the Chinese thus wanted to hide the real scale of what happened.
For publishing real data about deaths and destruction, as well as for articles about corruption that led to such huge numbers of losses, the Chinese authorities even sent the most famous contemporary Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, to prison for several months.
Hurricane Katrina
However, the scale of the consequences of a natural disaster does not always directly depend on the quality of construction in a particular region, as well as on the presence or absence of corruption there. An example of this is Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Southeastern coast of the United States in late August 2005. Gulf of Mexico.
The main impact of Hurricane Katrina fell on the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. Rising water levels in several places broke the dam protecting New Orleans, and about 80 percent of the city was under water. At this moment, entire areas were destroyed, infrastructure facilities, transport interchanges and communications were destroyed.
The population that refused or did not have time to evacuate took refuge on the roofs of houses. The main gathering place for people was the famous Superdome stadium. But it also turned into a trap, because it was no longer possible to get out of it.
The hurricane killed 1,836 people and left more than a million homeless. Damage from this natural disaster estimated at $125 billion. At the same time, New Orleans has not been able to return to a full-fledged normal life in ten years - the city's population is still about a third less than the 2005 level.
March 11, 2011 at Pacific Ocean To the east of the island of Honshu, tremors with a magnitude of 9-9.1 occurred, which led to the appearance of a huge tsunami wave up to 7 meters high. It hit Japan, washing away many coastal objects and going tens of kilometers inland.
IN different parts After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, fires started and infrastructure, including industrial, was destroyed. In total, almost 16 thousand people died as a result of this disaster, and economic losses amounted to about 309 billion dollars.
But this turned out to be not the worst thing. The world knows about the 2011 disaster in Japan, primarily because of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which occurred as a result of a tsunami wave hitting it.
More than four years have passed since this accident, but the operation at the nuclear power plant is still ongoing. And those closest to her settlements were permanently resettled. This is how Japan got its own.
Large-scale natural disaster– this is one of the options for the death of our Civilization. We have collected.
Scientific and technological progress makes life easier for people, but also leads to man-made accidents. This has always been the case. We will talk about the five most severe disasters in the history of the USSR.
Kurenevskaya tragedy
The Kurenevskaya tragedy occurred in Kyiv on March 13, 1961. On December 2, 1952, it was decided to create a landfill from construction waste in sad famous place Babi Yar. This place was blocked by a dam, which protected the Kurenevsky district from waste discharged from brick factories. On March 13, the dam broke, and a mud wave 14 meters high rushed down Teligi Street. The flow was very powerful and washed away everything in its path: cars, trams, buildings.
Although the flood lasted only an hour and a half, during this time the wave of waste managed to claim the lives of hundreds of people and cause catastrophic damage to the entire city. It was not possible to establish the exact number of victims, but this figure is close to 1.5 thousand people. In addition, approximately 90 buildings were destroyed, approximately 60 of which were residential.
The news of the disaster reached the population of the country only on March 16, and on the day of the tragedy the authorities decided not to advertise what happened. For this purpose, international and long-distance communications were turned off throughout Kyiv. Later, an expert commission made a decision on the causes of this accident; they called “errors in the design of hydraulic dumps and dams.”
Radiation accident at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant
Radiation accident at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant, which was located in Nizhny Novgorod, occurred on January 18, 1970. The tragedy occurred during the construction of the K-320 nuclear submarine, which was part of the Skat project. When the boat was on the slipway, the reactor suddenly turned on and operated for 15 seconds at its maximum speed. As a result of this, it happened radiation contamination the entire mechanical assembly shop.
At the time the reactor was operating, there were about 1,000 people working at the plant in the room. Unaware of the infection, many went home that day without the necessary medical care and decontamination treatment. Three of the six victims taken to a hospital in Moscow died from radiation sickness. It was decided not to make this incident public, and non-disclosure agreements were taken from all those who survived for 25 years. And only the next day after the accident the workers began to be processed. Elimination of the consequences of the accident continued until April 24, 1970; more than a thousand plant workers were involved in this work.
Accident on Chernobyl nuclear power plant
The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The reactor was completely destroyed as a result of the explosion, and environment a huge amount was thrown out radioactive substances. The accident was the largest in the history of nuclear energy. Main damaging factor The explosion caused radioactive contamination. In addition to the territories located in close proximity to the explosion (30 km), the territory of Europe was damaged. This happened because the cloud formed from the explosion carried radioactive materials many kilometers from the source. The fallout of iodine and cesium radionucleides was recorded on the territory of modern Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
During the first three months after the accident, 31 people died, while over the next 15 years, another 60 to 80 people died from the consequences of the accident. More than 115 thousand people were evacuated from the 30-kilometer affected area. More than 600 thousand military personnel and volunteers took part in the liquidation of the accident. The course of the investigation was constantly changing. The exact cause of the accident has not yet been established.
Kyshtym accident
The Kyshtym accident was the first man-made disaster in the USSR, it happened on September 29, 1957. It happened at the Mayak plant, which was located in the closed military city of Chelyabinsk-40. The name of the accident was given to the closest city of Kyshtym.
The cause was an explosion that occurred in a special tank for radiation waste. This container was a smooth cylinder made of stainless steel. The design of the container seemed reliable, and no one expected the cooling system to fail.
An explosion occurred, as a result of which about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere. About 90 percent of the radiation fell on the territory of the Mayak chemical plant itself. Fortunately, Chelyabinsk-40 was not damaged. During the liquidation of the accident, 23 villages were resettled, and the houses and domestic animals themselves were destroyed.
No one was killed as a result of the explosion. However, employees who carried out the elimination of contamination received a significant dose of radiation. About a thousand people took part in the operation. Now this zone is called the East Ural radioactive trace and any economic activity prohibited in this area.
Disaster at the Plesetsk cosmodrome
On March 18, 1980, during preparations for the launch of the Vostok 2-M launch vehicle, an explosion occurred. The incident occurred at the Plesetsk cosmodrome. This accident led to large quantities human casualties: only in the immediate vicinity of the rocket at the time of the explosion there were 141 people. 44 people died in the fire, the rest received burns of varying severity and were taken to the hospital, four of them subsequently died.
This was caused by the fact that hydrogen peroxide was used as a catalytic material in the manufacture of filters. It was only thanks to the bravery of the participants in this accident that many people were saved from the fire. The liquidation of the disaster lasted for three days.
In the future, scientists abandoned the use of hydrogen peroxide as a catalyst, which allowed them to avoid such incidents.
There have always been disasters: environmental, man-made. A lot of them have happened over the past hundred years.
Major water disasters
People have been crossing seas and oceans for hundreds of years. During this time, many shipwrecks occurred.
For example, in 1915, a German submarine fired a torpedo and blew up a British passenger liner. This happened not far from the Irish coast. The ship sank to the bottom in a matter of minutes. About 1,200 people died.
In 1944, a disaster occurred right in the port of Bombay. While unloading the ship, a powerful explosion occurred. The cargo ship contained explosives, gold bullion, sulfur, timber and cotton. It was the burning cotton, scattered within a radius of one kilometer, that caused the fire of all the ships in the port, warehouses and even many city facilities. The city burned for two weeks. 1,300 people were killed and more than 2,000 were injured. The port returned to its operating mode only 7 months after the disaster.
The most famous and large-scale disaster on the water is the sinking of the famous Titanic. He went under water during his first voyage. The giant was unable to change course when an iceberg appeared right in front of him. The liner sank, and with it one and a half thousand people.
At the end of 1917, a collision occurred between the French and Norwegian ships - Mont Blanc and Imo. The French ship was fully loaded with explosives. Powerful explosion along with the port, it destroyed part of the city of Halifax. The consequences of this explosion human lives: 2000 dead and 9000 wounded. This explosion is considered the most powerful until the advent of nuclear weapons.
In 1916, the Germans torpedoed a French ship. 3,130 people died. After the attack on the German hospital afloat General Steuben, 3,600 people lost their lives.
At the beginning of 1945 Submarine under the command of Marinesko, she fired a torpedo at the German liner Wilhelm Gustlow, 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 state. These include accidents 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 were killed and about 1,000 were injured.
The largest ecological catastrophy not only in the country, but throughout the world. It's about about the Aral Sea, which has almost dried up. This was facilitated by many factors, including social and soil ones. The Aral Sea disappeared in just half a century. In the 60s of the last century fresh waters 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 its place is taken by land.
Another indelible mark on the history of the fatherland was left by the flood in 2012 in the city of Krymsk Krasnodar region. Then, in two days, as much precipitation fell as falls in 5 months. Because of natural disaster 179 people died, and 34 thousand local residents suffered.
Major nuclear disaster
The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 went down in history not only Soviet Union, but also the whole world. The station's power unit exploded. As a result, there was a powerful release of radiation into the atmosphere. To this day, a radius of 30 km from the epicenter of the explosion is considered an exclusion zone. There is still no accurate data on the consequences of this terrible disaster.
Also nuclear explosion occurred in 2011, when the nuclear reactor at Fukushima-1 failed. This happened due to a strong earthquake in Japan. A huge amount of radiation entered the atmosphere.
The largest disasters in the history of mankind
In 2010, an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. After the stunning fire, the platform quickly sank, but oil spilled into the ocean for another 152 days. According to scientists, the area covered with an oil film amounted to 75 thousand square kilometers.
The worst global disaster in terms of death toll was the explosion of a chemical plant. This happened in the Indian city of Bhapola in 1984. 18 thousand people died, a large number of people were exposed to radiation.
In 1666, a fire occurred in London, which is still considered the most powerful fire in history. The fire destroyed 70 thousand houses and claimed the lives of 80 thousand city residents. It took 4 days to put out the fire.
You cannot live in the past, dream about the future, you need to appreciate the present, enjoy every day you live. The horrors that befell humanity in the twentieth century cannot be forgotten. The most tragic events, you will find shocking lessons of fate in our review.
Disasters on the water
The death of thousands of people in the waters was caused by for various reasons: human factor, design errors, military operations, natural disasters. Let's look at the largest tragedies in terms of the number of victims that occurred on the water in the last century:
1. "Goya". On a warship confiscated by the Germans after their occupation of Norwegian territories during the Great Patriotic War Patriotic War, 7,000 people died. On April 16, 1945, a torpedo was fired at the powerful ship from a Russian submarine, causing the Goya to sink in the Baltic Sea.
2. "Wilhelm Gustloff." The German ship is named after the Nazi party leader. At the time of construction it was considered the largest ship in the world. Before the war it was used as a means of recreation. The ship sank on January 30, 1945. The reason is an attack by the Soviet military from a submarine. The exact composition of the passengers is unknown, but according to the official version, 5,348 people died. There were women and children on board.
3. "Mont Blanc". On December 6, 1917, a French warship exploded in a Canadian harbor and collided with the Imo (Norway). As a result of the fire, few managed to survive. Mortality is 2,000 people (1,950 people identified), and the cause is a banal human factor. Not counting the pre-nuclear era, this explosion was the most powerful in the history of mankind. You can watch a film about the terrible tragedy made in Canada in 2003 - “Destructive City”.
4. "Bismarck". The German battleship was sunk by British aircraft on June 12, 1944 during the war. The number of victims was 1,995 people.
The sinking of the Titanic At the time of commissioning, the ship was considered the largest on earth. The giant ship sank on its first voyage on April 15, 1912, colliding with an iceberg.
Horror and death in the air
In the mid-twentieth century, air travel became widespread. The active development of passenger aviation has led to an excess of deaths in the sky compared to “water” mortality. Here is a list of “bright” tragedies that claimed the lives of many innocent people:
1. Clash in Tenerife. The disaster occurred on March 27, 1977. Event location: Canary Islands (Tenerife). The fatal “meeting” of two airliners caused the death of 583 people. 61 people managed to escape the tragedy. For the period of the twentieth century, this plane crash is the largest in terms of number civil aviation.
2. Disaster near Tokyo. On August 12, 1985, a Japanese airliner lost control 12 minutes after takeoff, losing its vertical stabilizer. For 32 minutes, the crew fought to save the plane in the air, but a collision with Mount Otsutaka influenced the devastating outcome of events. 520 people died, and only 4 survived. The disaster is called the largest in the history of “one plane.”
3. Charkhi Dadri (city in India). The plane crash occurred as a result of a collision between the flagship and Kazakh airliners at an altitude of 4,109 meters. All passengers were killed, including the crew of both planes (349 people in total).
4. Air crash near Paris. On March 3, 1974, a wide-body airliner built by a Turkish company killed 346 people. A few minutes after takeoff, the cargo bay door suddenly opened.
Explosive compression destroyed all control systems. The plane was picketing and crashed into the forest. The investigation indicated that the locking mechanism in the compartment was imperfect. Afterwards, many airlines made changes to aircraft designs to avoid catastrophic recurrences.
5. Terrorist attack near Cork. On its way to London, India's flagship carrier was the victim of a brutal terrorist attack. Just a few minutes before arrival, an explosion occurred on board the plane and everyone on board died (329 people). This is the largest terrorist attack in Canadian history.
Tragedies on earth
Some tragedies that happened in the last century on earth still cause concern and fear, continuing to destroy the health and lives of ordinary residents, namely:
1. Bhopal disaster. The man-made tragedy is the largest in history. An accident occurred at a chemical plant in India (1984). 18,000 people died. 3,000 of the dead were victims of instant death, while the rest died in the months and years following the tragedy. The cause of the terrible event could not be determined.
2. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. On April 26, 1986, a major deadly accident occurred, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Ukraine). Release into the air huge amount radioactive substances caused the deaths of hundreds of people, not immediately, but gradually.
3. Piper Alpha. At the oil station in 1988, 167 people (staff members) died, 59 people were lucky, they managed to survive. This disaster is the largest in the oil industry.
In addition to man-made tragedies, many other shocking events occurred in the twentieth century - a warrior, total whose millions of victims can no longer be counted: the First World War (1914-1818), Civil War in Russia (1917-1923), World War II (1939-1945), Korean War(1950-1053).
Natural disasters
1. Cyclone Bhola. The disaster occurred in 1970. The tropical storm swept across several territories of Pakistan and Bengal, wiping out cities and small villages. Researchers were unable to find out the exact number of deceased citizens (approximately 5,000,000 people).
2. Valdivian earthquake (1960 - Chile). The resulting tsunami did not protect many innocent residents. The number of victims reached several thousand people. Beyond Death a natural phenomenon caused significant damage to the affected areas (cost estimate: $500 million).
3. Megatsunami in Alaska (1958). Earthquake, landslides, collapse of rocks and ice into the water, the world's highest tsunami. The disaster totals 5,000,000 casualties.
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