Catastrophe
A catastrophe is a brutal event, of natural or human origin, having generally the Mort and the Destruction with large scales for consequence.
The singularity and the extent of the disaster which the great catastrophes cause affect the spirits of the Population S concerned. Today, they transcribe their advertisement through the Média S. Auparavant, they inserted them in their Mythe S and Légende S, with the image of the account of the Déluge. In the Greek Theater, the catastrophe was the last of the five parts of the Tragédie, the outcome where the hero received his punishment, generally disastrous (Catharsis).
With the difference of the Accident S, the catastrophes have as a consequence of new reflections on the means to implement to avoid them or to mitigate the disastrous effects of them. These reflections can lead to the creation of new standards or new legal constraints.
It is possible to distinguish two principal families from catastrophes, being characterized by their causes.
- the first, the natural catastrophes , relate to events climatic, seismic or astronomical major,
- the second, related to the human activities, are sometimes much more devastators.
Natural disasters
Impact
Mortality due to the natural disasters increased by 60% between the Années 1980 and the Années 2000; this increase is in particular allotted to the warming of planet and thus to the Greenhouse effect. Between 1994 and 2004, they touched 2,8 billion people and caused the death of 796 408 people (including 226.408 by the Tsunami of December 2004 in the South-East Asia), and of the economic losses estimated at 849 billion dollars. The very large majority - 95% - victims are in the poorest countries, on the one hand because these areas are very exposed, but especially because of the absence of network of alarm, an anarchistic urban development and a grubbing of the grounds supporting the floods and landslides.
Climatic catastrophes
These catastrophes take various forms: Cyclone S, hurricane S, Storm S major or climatic disordered states, but also Avalanche S or seisms.
See List of climatic catastrophes.
Flood S and Tidal wave
List
- 1421: the Flood of the Holy-Elisabeth in Holland and Zealand devastates tens of villages and causes between 2.000 and 10.000 dead.
- 1755 : the Earthquake of Lisbon of 1755 to the Portugal is one of most destroying and most fatal of the history: one counts between 50.000 and 100.000 victims. The jolt was followed by a Tsunami and Incendies, which destroyed the town of Lisbon in its near total.
- 1861 : the flood of the mine of Bessèges in the Gard, following a overflow of the Cèze, makes 140 dead.
- August 27th 1883: the eruption of the Krakatoa causes a tidal wave which by places culminated with 40 meters in height. A Boat, the Berouw , anchored in bay of Sumatra to broad of Telukbetung was found with three kilometers of the coasts at an altitude of 10 meters. The whole world felt it, and on the coasts of the North Atlantic, one could observe a Vague of 12 meters.
- January 1910: Flood of Paris, the believed of the Seine floods 500 hectares of the French capital.
- the night of the January 31st to the 1953: a tidal wave causes 1.800 dead in the south-west of the Netherlands.
- February 17th 1962: serious floods of the Elba cause 300 dead with Hamburg in Germany.
- November 26th 1967: torrential rains with Lisbon with the Portugal, more than 450 dead.
- October 20th 1982: the pantanada of All , with Valencia, Spain, the Júcar has a rising of 16 000 m/s.
- August 2004: floods of the Elba and the the Danube
- September 2004: Haiti, 3.000 died after the passage of the Hurricane Jeanne.
- flood of the Yangtze in China: 50 000 affected schools (nine million schoolboys)
- December 26th 2004: Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India; 226.408 died in the tidal wave associated with the earthquake with Sumatra (magnitude higher than 9) (see Earthquake of December 26th, 2004)
- July 2005: catastrophic floods caused by the Mousson make more than 969 dead in crumblings and landslides in the state of the Maharashtra, in the west of the India. Bombay is paralyzed by 944,2 mm of water fallen on July 24th, 2005.
- August 2005: the floods in Europe made at least 70 died.
- July 2006: the catastrophic floods in North Korea make several thousands of victims.
- August 2007: most serious Floods in North Korea since more than forty years.
Seismic catastrophes
See List of seismic catastrophes
Landslides
See also: Landslide
Eruptions Volcano ic
list
- 1500 before J. - C.: the eruption of the Santorin destroys the city crétoise Akrotiri (a giant wave caused by the explosion of the volcano crossed the Crete of north to the south)
- August 24th 79: the eruption of the Vesuvius destroys the town of Pompéi. Approximately 30 000 dead.
- April 10th 1815: the cataclysmic eruption of the mount Tambora, undoubtedly most important of the millenium, exploded the top which lost 1 500 meters of altitude. Several tens of thousands of people died, either directly, or following the world climatic upheaval which followed (famine following “ the year without été ”). Ashes recover a large territory like France.
- August 27th 1883: the eruption of the Krakatoa recovers the capital of the Indonesia, Batavia (at the time), of ashes and causes a Raz-de-marée.
- May 8th 1902: the eruption of the Peeled Mountain (Martinique) destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre. Approximately 30 000 dead.
- November 18th 1985: the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz (Colombia) destroyed the town of Armero. Approximately 24 000 dead.
Falls of celestial objects
See also: Meteorite
The fall of Météorite S of a certain size can cause considerable damage on a very wide zone: the damage caused by the fall of such an object in 1908 in Siberia (see Toungouska), devastated several thousands of square kilometers in an uninhabited zone.
For the moment one does not regret of major catastrophe in an inhabited area. It however is not excluded that some cases isolated people killed by the fall from celestial objects could occur.
Liste
- the Cratère of Chicxulub is according to several scientists, a crater caused by the fall of a meteorite of almost 10 kilometers diameter which would have fallen down on the Earth approximately 65 million years ago, i.e. at the end of the Crétacé and would be with the source of massive exctinctions of species.
Catastrophes of human origin
Industrial
An industrial catastrophe is related to an accident in one of the phases of the industrial production, mining or during the transport of this production, in particular the transport of oil, which caused many oil slicks.
See List of industrial catastrophes and the List of the principal oil slicks.
Nuclear
Among the industrial catastrophes which have occurred in the field of the production of nuclear energy, one can quote the Catastrophe of Tchernobyl, known for his environmental impact and human, and to a lesser extent the nuclear accident of Three Mile Island because this last marked the opinion and makes adopt greater safety measures. The bombardments of the atomic bomb, in time of war, are included in the military catastrophes. See the articles Nuclear accident and List of the nuclear accidents, which include the classification of the accidents and catastrophes.
Transport of people
The use of means of Transport of passengers developed and the means of transport used can have important capacities. When an accident or a Attentat occurs, the human consequences can be dramatic with many deaths.
According to the touched means of transport, one speaks about Air crash, railway catastrophe or maritime catastrophe. There does not exist however particular term to indicate a catastrophe of Funiculaire or Télécabine. The road accidents in are generally not counted like catastrophes, except in the event of particular circumstances (for example, when a pile-up or a particularly serious accident of Autocar occurs).
See List of catastrophes of transport of people
Soldiers
It can be considered that all the Guerre S are essentially catastrophes, by death and the desolation which they imply. The human losses are many, even gigantic, generally within the civil populations (with a short European exception between the end of the Guerre Thirty Year old and the Second world war). The object of this paragraph is not to count the innumerable wars which were held during the human existence, but rather to be interested in the catastrophes having had for origin the military fact, in time of war as in times of peaces, which were made conspicuous by their characteristic or their impact at the same time on the populations or the Environnement.
See List of military catastrophes
Modern catastrophes due to the modes of production
One can quote the contamination of the seeds of biological Maïs by the corn GMO in Spain, the Scandale of asbestos, the business of the " Blood contaminated " , the epidemic of the " Mad cow " , etc
Ecological catastrophes
See also: environmental Catastrophe, ecological Crisis
Thèmes nonexhaustive: cast iron of the icecap due to the Climate warming, the loss of the Biodiversity with the disappearance of thousands of species of plants and animals, the hole of the Layer of ozone.
| Random links: | Polymorphism (data-processing) | The Territory | Corcovado | Pierre Dominjon | Christian Lüscher | Canon_occidental |