A friend and I have a running disagreement on which type of natural disaster causes the most deaths and destruction in the U.S. and worldwide–hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, floods, etc. In a given year any one of them could cause massive destruction (like December’s tragic tsunami disaster), but how about on average, and how has this changed over time (for example, floods in 1900 vs. tornadoes now)? –Andy B., via e-mail
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No offense, Andy, but you’ve got a pretty narrow idea of what constitutes a natural disaster–although I’ll grant you it’s one that’s widely shared. The World Almanac, for example, has entries for hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and the like but omits famines and epidemics, which generally are of natural origin, kill more people, and alter history to a substantially greater extent. One may argue that a natural disaster is a brief, impersonal convulsion in which humans are mere roadkill, whereas famines and epidemics take place over a longer period of time and human involvement is more central. But this seems to me a silly distinction that serves chiefly to eliminate the most shocking cases. Since the topic is dismayingly large, we’ll take it in chunks:
Famine. Famine is also problematic. Prior to 1900 famines were principally of natural origin, the prototypical example being the Irish potato famine of 1846-’49, which was caused by crop failure due to blight and led to a million deaths and mass emigration, emptying Ireland to a degree from which it has never recovered. In the 20th century, in contrast, many of the most devastating famines were primarily a consequence not of natural forces but of foolish or homicidal government policy. In the former category we have the Chinese famine of 1959-’62, during which 20 million died as a result of the ill-conceived but not fundamentally malevolent Great Leap Forward; in the latter, the Soviet famine of 1932-’34, in which Stalin’s campaign to destroy the prosperous kulak peasant class led to the deaths of 6 to 8 million in Ukraine and the north Caucasus. Of course, many “natural” famines still occurred, such as the Ethiopian famine of 1984-’85, in which nearly a million died following a drought.
