This is a list of world disasters, both natural and man-made.

Prehistoric disasters

• The Snowball Earth hypothesis.
• Various extinction events, some of an undetermined nature.
• Impact events.
• Great prehistoric floods, many brought on by rising sea levels and melting glacial dams at the end of the most recent ice age

Classical antiquity disasters

• Thera volcanic eruption caused tsunamis in the Aegean sea, destroyed Minoan fleet, leaving Crete open to mainland invaders
• Vesuvius volcanic eruption, Italy, 79 AD buried Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae.
• Alexandria earthquake which destroyed the Pharos of Alexandria
• Rhodes earthquake destroyed the Colossus of Rhodes
• (Sodom and Gomorrah which were destroyed in an undetermined Biblical disaster.)
• Climatic disaster of 535 AD, triggered by an Indonesian volcanic eruption; grassland failures spurred migrations of Avars and others; plagues, conjectured collapse of Late Antiquity (David Keys theory, in Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World, 2000. See climate changes of 535-536.

Modern world disasters

• 1755 Lisbon earthquake (November 1st, 1755)
• Mobile magazine explosion (May 25, 1865)
• Great Chicago Fire (Oct 8-10, 1871)
• Krakatoa, Indonesia, volcanic eruption, (August 26, 1883)
• Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Galveston, Texas (September 8, 1900)
• 1887 Nanaimo Mine Explosion, Nanaimo, BC (May 3, 1887)
• 1906 San Francisco earthquake, San Francisco, California (April 18, 1906)
• Great Lakes Storm of 1913, Great Lakes basin region (November, 1913)
• Halifax explosion, Halifax, Nova Scotia (December 6, 1917)
• The Boston Molasses Disaster, Boston, Massachusetts (January 15 1919)
• Tri-State Tornado, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana (March 18, 1925)
• 1931 Huang He floods, China (August 1931)
• The Bombay Explosion, Victoria Dock Bombay, India (April 14 1944)
• Hartford Circus Fire, Hartford, Connecticut (July 6, 1944)
• The Port Chicago Explosion (July 17 1944)
• Texas City Explosion, Texas City, Texas, (April 16, 1947)
• Great Smog of 1952, London, England
• North Sea Flood of 1953, United Kingdom and The Netherlands
• 24 hours of Le Mans disaster, France, (June 11, 1955)
• Escuminac Disaster, Escuminac , New Brunswick, Canada (June 20, 1959)
• Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak, Midwest, United States (April 11, 1965)
• BLEVE explosion at a refinery in Feyzin , France (January 4, 1966)
• Aberfan disaster, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales (October 21, 1966)
• Bhola cyclone in East Pakistan/Bangladesh, (November 13, 1970)
• Second Ibrox disaster, Glasgow, Scotland (January 2, 1971)
• Summerland disaster, Isle of Man (August 2, 1973)
• Super Outbreak, tornadoes in 13 U.S. states (April 3, 1974)
• Flixborough disaster, North Lincolnshire (June 1 1974)
• Tangshan earthquake, China (July 26 1976)
• USA Heat Wave of 1980, (June to September 1980)
• Hyatt Hotel disaster, Kansas City, Missouri (July 17 1981)
• Bradford City Disaster, Bradford, England (May 11, 1985)
• Heysel Stadium disaster, Brussels, Belgium (May 29, 1985)
• Piper Alpha Disaster, North Sea, Scotland, (July 6 1988)
• Spitak Earthquake, Spitak, Armenia (December 7, 1988)
• Hillsborough disaster, Sheffield, England (April 15, 1989)
• Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption (June 15th, 1991)
• Westray Mine Disaster, Plymouth, Nova Scotia, Canada (May 9, 1992)
• Chicago Heat Wave of 1995, Chicago, Illinois
• Kocaeli Earthquake , Kocaeli, Turkey (August 17, 1999)
• Enschede fireworks disaster, Enschede, Netherlands (May 13, 2000)
• Kaprun disaster, Kaprun, Austria (November 11, 2000)
• 2001 Gujarat Earthquake, Bhuj, India (January 26, 2001)
• European Heat Wave of 2003, Europe
• Bam Earthquake, Iran (December 26, 2003)
• 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, Indonesia (December 26, 2004)
• 2005 Sumatran earthquake, Indonesia (March 28, 2005)

Dam disasters

• Great Sheffield flood, Sheffield, England (March 11, 1864)
• Johnstown flood, Johnstown, Pennsylvania (May 31, 1889)
• St. Francis Dam disaster, Los Angeles, California (March 12, 1928)
• Vajont Dam disaster, Longarone, Italy (October 9, 1963)
• Banqiao Dam disaster, Henan Province, China (August 8 1975)

Environmental disasters

• Torrey Canyon oilspill in the English Channel (March 18, 1967)
• Love Canal, Niagara Falls, New York (1970s)
• Seveso disaster, Italy, 1976
• Bhopal Disaster, Bhopal, India (December 3, 1984)
• Exxon Valdez oil spill, Prince William Sound (March 24, 1989)
• Prestige oil spill, off the Spanish coast, (November 13, 2002)

Mining disasters

• Brunner, New Zealand, 67 killed (March, 1896)
• Fraterville Mine disaster, Tennessee, United States, 184 killed (May, 1902)
• Courriere, France,1099 killed (March, 1906)
• Monongah, West Virginia, United States, 362 killed (December, 1907)
• Burns Pit Disaster , Stanley, County Durham, England, 160+ killed (February 16, 1909)
• Cherry, Illinois, United States, 259 killed (December, 1909)
• Hillcrest , Alberta, Canada, 189 killed (June 19, 1914). Canada's worst mine disaster
• Dawson, New Mexico , United States, 263 killed (October, 1913)
• Gresford, Wrexham 266 killed (September,1934)
• Springhill Mining Disaster, Springhill, Nova Scotia, Canada, 125 killed (October 23, 1958)
• Knox Mine Disaster, Pennsylvania, United States (January 22, 1959)
• Luisenthal (near Völklingen ), Germany (February 7, 1962), 299 killed
• Kellogg, Idaho, United States, 91 killed (May, 1972)

Nuclear disasters

• Three Mile Island, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania (March 28 1979)
• Chernobyl nuclear power-plant disaster, Chernobyl, Ukraine (April 26, 1986)
• See also List of nuclear accidents

War disasters

An attack with much collateral damage may be considered a disaster, such as the attack on KdF Ship Wilhelm Gustloff, 1945, the worst or perhaps second worst maritime incident in history (after Cap Arcona in two vessels), in terms of loss of life in a single vessel (see also note at the end of the article RMS Titanic).

• The Blitz (September 7, 1940 through to May 1941)
• Bombing of Dresden in World War II (February 13-15, 1945)
• Bombing of Tokyo in World War II (February 23, March 9 and May 26 1945
• Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and August 9 1945, respectively)
• Vietnam. Agent orange herbicide sprayed on millions of Vietnam civilians and US troops by the USA during the Vietnam War between 1961 and 1970.

Air disasters

This is a list of disasters involving objects in flight or near-flight. See also: List of space disasters, Accidents and incidents in aviation

• Hydravion disaster Rio de Janeiro 3 December 1928
• Airship R101 disaster (October 5 1930)
• Hindenburg disaster (May 6 1937)
• Superga air disaster (May 4 1949)
• Munich air disaster (February 6 1958)
• Staines air disaster (July 18 1972)
• Ermenonville air disaster north of Paris (March 3 1974)
• Tenerife disaster collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's (March 27, 1977)
• Mount Erebus disaster in Antarctica (November 28 1979)
• Boeing 747 shootdown, Korean Air Flight 7 (September 1 1983)
• Air India Flight 182 June 23, 1985
• Japan Airlines Flight 123 (August 12, 1985)
• Challenger space shuttle explosion (January 28 1986)
• Ramstein airshow disaster (August 28, 1988)
• Lockerbie disaster (December 21 1988)
• Kegworth air disaster (January 8 1989)
• Airbus A300 shootdown, Iran Air Flight 655 (July 3, 1988)
• Bijlmerramp disaster, Bijlmerramp, Netherlands (October 4 1992)
• Swissair Flight 111 September 2, 1998
• Ukraine airshow disaster (July 27, 2002)
• Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (February 1, 2003)

Rail disasters

• St-Hilaire train disaster 1864 - Canada's worst railway disaster - 99 killed
• Abergele train disaster (1868)
• Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster 1876
• Armagh rail disaster (June 12 1889)
• Sunshine station disaster (April 20 1908)
• Wellington avalanche (March 1 1910)
• Tangiwai railway disaster (December 24 1953)
• Granville railway disaster (January 18 1977)
• Eschede train disaster (June 3 1998)
• Ladbroke Grove rail crash (October 5 1999)
• Hatfield rail crash (October 17 2000)
• Potters Bar rail crash (May 10 2002)
• Neyshabur disaster (February 18, 2004)
• Madrid train terror attacks (March 11 2004)
• Ryongchon disaster (April 22 2004)
• "Queen of the Sea" train disaster, Telwatta , Sri Lanka: Approximately 1700 are killed in the world's worst rail disaster to date as a train is overwhelmed by a tsunami created by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake (December 26, 2004)

See also: List of rail accidents

Ship and ferry disasters

See also: List of shipwrecks

• Sultana explosion (27 April 1865) — about 1,700 deaths
• General Slocum fire (15 June 1904) — 1,021 deaths
• Titanic sinking (April 15, 1912) — 1,496–1,503 deaths
• Empress of Ireland sinking (May 30, 1914) — 1,012 deaths
• Lusitania sinking (May 7, 1915) — 1,195–1,198 deaths
• Eastland sinking (July 24,1915) — 845 deaths
• Iolaire sinking (January 1, 1919) — at least 205 deaths
• Morro Castle fire (September 8, 1934) — 137 deaths
• HMT Lancastria sinking (1940) — 2,000–5,000 deaths
• Tango Maru sinking (June 29, 1944) — about 3,000 deaths
• Ryusei Maru sinking (June 29, 1944) — 4,998 deaths
• Toyama Maru sinking (June 29, 1944) — about 5,600 deaths
• Koshu Maru sinking (August 3, 1944) — about 1,540 deaths
• Junyo Maru sinking (September 18, 1944) — about 5,620 deaths
• Wilhelm Gustloff sinking (January 30, 1945) — about 9,000–10,000 deaths (believed to be worst ship disaster ever)
• Steuben sinking (February 9, 1945 — about 4,000–4,500 deaths
• Goya sinking April 16, 1945 — more than 7,000 deaths
• Cap Arcona sinking (May 3, 1945) — about 7,000 to 8,000 deaths together with Thielbek and Athen
• Thielbek sinking (May 3, 1945)
• Noronic fire (September 17, 1949) — 118 to 139 deaths
• Princess Victoria sinking (January 31, 1953) — 132 deaths
• Novorossiysk sinking (29 October 1955) — 608 deaths
• SS Andrea Doria sinking (July 26, 1956) — about 45 deaths
• Herald of Free Enterprise (March 6, 1987) — 134 deaths
• M/S Estonia sinking (September 28,1994) — 852 deaths
• Kursk sinking (August 12,2000) — 118 deaths

Road disasters

• A dynamite truck blew up in Thailand, 150+ killed (February 15, 1945)
• 7 ammunition trucks explode in Colombia, 1,200 killed (August 7, 1956)
• Two trucks collided in Togo, 125+ killed (December 6,1965)
• A bus drove into an irrigation canal in Egypt, 127 killed (August 9, 1973)
• A suspension bridge collapsed in Nepal, 148 killed (November 23, 1974)
• A gasoline tanker exploded in Spain, 120+ killed (July 11,1978)
• A gasoline tanker explodes in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan, 2,000+ killed (November 3, 1982)
• A bus hit a bridge in Kenya, 106 killed (December,1992)
• An explosion created a hole, in which 100 cars fell in South Korea, 110 killed (April 28,1995)
• A gasoline tanker hit cars and exploded in Nigeria, 150+ killed (November 4 2000)

Fire disasters

Main article: List of historic fires

• Great Fire of London, London, England (September 2-September 5 1666)
• Great Chicago Fire, Chicago, Illinois (October 8, 1871)
• Peshtigo Fire, Peshtigo, Wisconsin (October 8, 1871)

Causes of hypothetical future disasters

• Supervolcano
• Asteroid impact event
• Megatsunami
  • Cumbre Vieja
• Recurrence of Cascadia Earthquake
• Global warming

See also

• List of wars and disasters by death toll
• List of Canadian disasters
• List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll
• List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom