Earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves.
Tsunami
A tsunami also called a tsunami wave train, and at one time incorrectly referred to as a tidal wave, is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, usually an ocean, though it can occur in large lakes.
Tornado
A tornado (often referred to as a twister or, erroneously, a cyclone) is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud.
Floods
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water
Volcanic Eruptions
Volcanoes can cause widespread destruction and consequent disaster through several ways. The effects include the volcanic eruption itself that may cause harm following the explosion of the volcano or the fall of rock.
Tsunami 1700s
6:10 AM
1700: Vancouver Island, Canada
On January 26, 1700, the Cascadia earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes on record (estimated MW 9 magnitude), ruptured the Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) offshore from Vancouver Island to northern California, and caused a massive tsunami across the Pacific Northwest logged in Japan and oral traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest.
1707: Hōei, Japan
On October 28, 1707, during the Hōei era, an 8.4 earthquake and tsunami 25.7-meter-high struck at the Kochi Prefecture. More than 29,000 houses in total wrecked and washed away and about 30,000 deaths. In Tosa, 11,170 houses washed away and 18,441 people drowned. About 700 drowned and 603 houses washed away in Osaka. 20 m high at Tanezaki, Tosa, 6.58 at Muroto. Hot springs at Yunomine, Sanji, Ryujin, Seto-Kanayana (Kii) and Dogo (Iyo,145 days) stopped.
1741: W. Hokkaido, Japan
On 29 August 1741 the western side of Hokkaido was hit by a tsunami associated with the eruption of the volcano on Oshima island. The cause of the tsunami is thought to have been a large landslide, partly submarine, triggered by the eruption. 1,467 people were killed on Hokkaido and another 8 in Aomori Prefecture.
1755: Lisbon, Portugal
Tens of thousands of Portuguese people who survived the Great Lisbon Earthquake on November 1, 1755 were killed by a tsunami which followed 40 minutes later. Many townspeople fled to the waterfront, believing the area safe from fires and from falling debris from aftershocks. When at the waterfront, they saw that the sea was rapidly receding, revealing a sea floor littered with lost cargo and forgotten shipwrecks. The tsunami struck with a maximum height of 15 metres (49 ft), and went far inland.
The earthquake, tsunami, and many fires killed between 60,000 and 100,000 in Lisbon alone, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Historical records of explorations by Vasco da Gama and other early navigators were lost, and countless buildings were destroyed (including most examples of Portugal's Manueline architecture). Europeans of the 18th century struggled to understand the disaster within religious and rational belief systems. Philosophers of the Enlightenment, notably Voltaire, wrote about the event. The philosophical concept of the sublime, as described by philosopher Immanuel Kant in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, took inspiration in part from attempts to comprehend the enormity of the Lisbon quake and tsunami.
The tsunami took just over 4 hours to travel over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to Cornwall in the United Kingdom. An account by Arnold Boscowitz claimed "great loss of life." It also hit Galway in Ireland, and caused some serious damage to the Spanish Arch section of the city wall.
1771: Yaeyama Islands, Okinawa, Japan
An undersea earthquake of estimated magnitude 7.4 occurred near Yaeyama Islands in Okinawa, Japan on 4 April 1771 at about 8 A.M.. The earthquake is not believed to have directly resulted in any deaths, but a resulting tsunami is thought to have killed about 12,000 people, (9313 on the Yaeyama Islands and 2548 on Miyako Islands according to one source). Estimates of the highest seawater runup on Ishigaki Island, range between 30 meters and 85.4 meters. The tsunami put an abrupt stop to population growth on the islands, and was followed by malaria epidemics and crop failures which decreased the population further. It was to be another 148 years before population returned to its pre-tsunami level.
1792: Mount Unzen, Nagasaki Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan
Tsunamis were the main cause of death for Japan's worst-ever volcanic disaster, due to an eruption of Mount Unzen in Nagasaki Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan. It began towards the end of 1791 as a series of earthquakes on the western flank of Mount Unzen which gradually moved towards Fugen-daké, one of Mount Unzen's peaks. In February 1792, Fugen-daké started to erupt, triggering a lava flow which continued for two months. Meanwhile, the earthquakes continued, shifting nearer to the city of Shimabara. On the night of 21 May, two large earthquakes were followed by a collapse of the eastern flank of Mount Unzen's Mayuyama dome, causing an avalanche which swept through Shimabara and into Ariake Bay, triggering a tsunami. It is not known to this day whether the collapse occurred as a result of an eruption of the dome or as a result of the earthquakes. The tsunami struck Higo Province on the other side of Ariake Bay before bouncing back and hitting Shimabara again. Out of an estimated total of 15,000 fatalities, around 5,000 is thought to have been killed by the landslide, around 5,000 by the tsunami across the bay in Higo Province, and a further 5,000 by the tsunami returning to strike Shimabara. The waves reached a height of 330 ft, classing this tsunami as a small megatsunami.
