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Disaster

A disaster is an unexpected natural or unintentional man-made catastrophe of substantial extent causing significant property damage or destruction, loss of lives or sometimes permanent changes to natural environment. Disasters may also be used to refer to unforseen events which devastate a company or industry such as a public relations disaster or a major flop[?]. A disaster can create huge financial losses and protection against losses due to disasters is one purpose of insurance.

The term disaster comes from the term "bad stars" and reflects the key characteristic of a disaster which is its unintentional nature. Catastrophes which are intentional such as terrorist attacks are not termed disasters.

Ancient times

Vesuvius volcano eruption
Alexandria earthquake - destroyed the Pharos of Alexandria
Rhodes earthquake - destroyed the Colossus of Rhodes

Modern times

Mobile magazine explosion May 25, 1865
Krakatau volcano eruption (August 26, 1883 - local time)
Armagh rail disaster (June 12, 1889)
Galveston, Texas flood, 5000+ die (September 8, 1900)
Titanic sinking (April 15, 1912)
Halifax explosion (December 6, 1917)
The Boston Molasses Disaster (January 15, 1919)
Hindenburg disaster (May 6, 1937)
The Bombay Explosion[?] (April 14, 1944) in Victoria Dock Bombay, India
24 hours of Le Mans disaster, June 11, 1955
Munich air disaster (February 6, 1958)
Aberfan disaster (October 21, 1966)
Ermenonville air disaster[?] north of Paris (March 3, 1974)
Granville railway disaster (January 18, 1977)
Tenerife disaster collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's (March 27, 1977)
Three Mile Island. (March 28, 1979) - no deaths or illness result but there is several hundred million dollars in property damage and the U.S. nuclear industry is devastated.
Hyatt Hotel disaster (July 17, 1981) in Kansas City, Missouri
Shooting down of Boeing 747 KAL007 (September 1, 1983)
Bhopal Tragedy, 3000 die following methyl isocyanate gas release December 3, 1984
Heysel Stadium disaster (May 29, 1985)
Japanese 747 disaster[?] (August 15, 1985)
Challenger space shuttle explosion (January 28, 1986)
Chernobyl atomic power-plant explosion (May 25, 1986)
Herald of Free Enterprise[?], the English cross-channel car ferry capsized and sank with 189 of the 459 passengers drowning. (March 6, 1987)
Ramstein airshow disaster (August 28, 1988)
Hillsborough disaster (April 15, 1989)
Bijlmerramp disaster (October 4, 1992)
Estonia ferry sinking (September 28, 1994)
Eschede train disaster (June 3, 1998)
Enschede fireworks disaster (May 13, 2000)
Kaprun disaster fire kills 155 skiers in the Alps (November 11, 2000)
Ukraine airshow disaster (July 27, 2002)
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (February 1, 2003)

War

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, in terms of loss of life in a single vessel (see also note at the end of the article RMS Titanic).