# Worst catastrophes in your city



## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

VIENNA

If war counts as desaster one should list the following:

1529 Siege of Vienna
1683 Battle of Vienna

Especialy the latter one was desastrous for the city. As everything beyond the inner cities city walls had been destroyed.

WWII 1/5 of the city was bombed to rubble


Regarding epidemies, the black death appeared two times in history massively. Once in the middle age, and the second time somewhere in the 16th or 17th century.


Regarding fires, i am not aware of a famous fire in Vienna. But I can not believe that there where no large fires back than.


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

*Blumenau*

It were basically floods.

*1983* - The river reached 16 meters (10m above normal) and flooded the city for 30 days.
*1984* - The river reached 17 meters and flooded the city for a week.

No deaths, just homeless people.

A pic from 1983:


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## Qatar Son 333 (May 10, 2006)

not much we had a collapse in a mall a 2 fires in diffrent malls 2 fires in the same twin towers every time during construction an explosion in a school at night thats all for us but our nighbour contry had a catastrophe bahrain one of the smallest contreys has an airport near the sea this happend about 3 years ago gulf air the offical airline of bahrain one of its planes were going to land in the airport whene it was so near to the water that the pilot turned a littil causing the aircraft to dive in crashing into bits with meny children on board


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## Octoman (Nov 16, 2006)

Tubeman said:


> Care to expand on this?


My comment was flippant. Wjfox also pointed out that London has not suffered under Ken.

Without wanting to troll the thread, I'll just briefly clarify my thoughts because I shouldnt have made such a comment without supporting it :

To start with I feel an enormous disappointment in his approach to the congestion charge in London. I wasnt in favour in the first place but accepted that given the limit boundary and the promise of no future cost increases it was worth trying. As a advocate of public transport it may seem strange to be against the scheme but the fact was I have a deep mistrust for the man and sensed there was a high probability he would begin to use the scheme for political ends. It therefore came as little surprise that he subsequently increased the charge, then expanded the area, and then looked to increase the charge again. The last straw for me is the 25 pound charge on 4x4s. To say I feel angry at the man is a gross understatement. I am absolutely fuming. It hurts one part of the london demographics and one part only. Ken seems to hold the better off in london in contempt and this to me is a clear example of him using his powers against them.

Add to this that I find as an ambassador for the city he is often lacking and occasionally embarassing. He is gaff prone sure, but some of his comments are downright offensive and accasionally be construed as racist. No point dragging up the various press reports, we have all seen them and no doubt some are exagerated. But there have been too many to ignore and the general impression I get of him is that he is .... well, not a nice man. I found his south American jaunt deeply embarassing for myself and my city.

He launches public consultations, and then ignores the results when he disagrees. He has made some bizarre transport decisions - introduction of bendy buses, removal of routemasters. He has overseen substantial rises in the cost of public transport. Basically, he has done absolutely nothing for me.

They are just a few of my thoughts. I understand he is popular and I understand why. On occasion he does stand up for London. I was quite impressed that he had the guts to come out and object to the takeover of the LSE, a disaster waiting to happen. But then, I am just as likely to open the paper and read that he has taken a £250 cab to Blackpool! Racist is probably an unfair term for the bloke but he at the very least seems pretty unbalanced in his views and highly judgemental. I'm sure I am in the minority in my views but it is just the way I feel.

As I said, sorry to talk off topic but wanted to support my view.

Now, back to disasters.....


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## salvius (Aug 4, 2004)

Jack Rabbit Slim said:


> I think London and Tokyo have suffered more then most cities throughout their history, ....invasions, fires, plagues, floods, bombings, terrorist attacks.....


I don't think either are really even close to have suffered more than the most...


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## Jayme (Apr 23, 2006)

Beirut has sufferd alot civil war in 1975 to 1991 and Poltical assansations in 2005 and the recent war in 2006 

Im not sure if Melbourne has a Catastrophe if Ash wensday counts and the Dust Storm in 1982


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

salvius said:


> I don't think either are really even close to have suffered more than the most...


Well, Tokyo has suffered already pretty much at least. Perhaps not the very most, but quite among the top.

London however has defintely not suffered the most. Your city hardly would look imperial anymore if that would be the case. 

Most large cities have suffered great fires, floods or similar. Many cities have been hit hardly in WWII. Its really sad and a terrible thing, but it seems to be not too uncommon.

Just ask the people from Warsaw how it looks like if war destroys your city. Or perhaps Dresden or Conventry...


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## Cariad (Sep 22, 2005)

Sydney has been quite boring ... Thankfully. These are the worst disasters

1857: Ship Dunbar sinks in Sydney Harbour killing 121 
1927: Sydney Ferry Crash killing 42
1977: Granville rail Crash killing 83
1981: Rembrandt Hotel in Kings Cross burns down killing 19

and our one and only terrorist attack was in 1978 when the Hilton Hotel was bombed in the city during the Commonwealth Head of State Metting killing 3


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## Unsing (Apr 15, 2006)

Here is the list of catastrophies in Tokyo with thousands of death.
-*1657 Great Meireki Fire* 110,000 dead
-*1682 Great Tenna Fire* 3,500 dead
-*1698 Great Genroku Edo Fire* 3,000 dead
-*1703 Great Genroku Earthquake* 5,200 dead
-*1772 Great Meiwa Fire* 15,000 dead
-*1806 Great Bunka Fire* 1,200 dead
-*1829 Great Bunsei Fire* 2,800 dead
-*1855 Great Ansei Earthquake* 11,000 dead
-*1923 Great Kanto Earthquake* 142,000 dead
-*1945 World War II Firebombing* 100,000 dead


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## gladisimo (Dec 11, 2006)

haha, my "city" is only about 45 years old. I guess the worst "disasters" would be a car crash or something. or the '89 Earthquake.

If you count San Francisco, then of course the 1906 quake


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## Elmo (Feb 5, 2003)

The same goes for Almere. This city only 30 years old. The worst thing what has happened are some traffic-accidents.


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## Yörch1 (Oct 31, 2006)

*Mexico City's worst recent catastrophe was an 8.1 Richter scale degrees earthquake in September 19, 1985 that killed 30,000 people. With a following 7.1 replica the next day.*




























*Tlatelolco commieblocks area, was one of the most affected zones.*


















*St. Regis Hotel totally devastated...*


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## Sean in New Orleans (Apr 7, 2005)

The greatest catastrophes in New Orleans, in order are:

1.) Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1850's

2.) Great French Quarter fire of 1788.

3.) Great 1927 hurricane

4.) Hurricane Katrina, 2005

5.) 500 year flood of 1995, Hurricane Betsy, 1965 tie


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

^How are they rebuilding over there? Are the people who left moving back at all?


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## kebabmonster (Jun 29, 2004)

Excluding war, Greater Manchester's worst catastrophe/diasaster was in 1910 when *344* people died in the Pretoria Pit disaster between Atherton and Westhoughton. The worst air disaster was a flight over Stockport, where 72 died in 1967.


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## Pavlvs (Jan 5, 2005)

Excluding hundreds of wars, dozens of sacks, hundrends of sieges, pestilences, floods, troubles, mass executions, christian persecutions, gladiators games with hundrends of victims, mass crucifixions, allied bombardments, earthquakes and more and more and more, i believe that the most famous catastrophe in Rome was in the night between 18 and 19 july 64, when Emperor Nero burned Rome.
Simply the most famous fire in the history.


But i like remember the collapse of Circus Maximus in 310, when a large part of the greatest stadium ever ( until 375.000 spectators) collapsed.
Deads, for roman historicians, were to 13.000 until 30.000.

The greatest catastrophe ever for a collapse of one single building.


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## leebuk2005 (Jul 4, 2005)

Manchester IRA Bomb. 11:20am Saturday 15yh June 1996

The Damage









The Wounded









The Explosion


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## Sean in New Orleans (Apr 7, 2005)

the spliff fairy said:


> ^How are they rebuilding over there? Are the people who left moving back at all?


We're doing OK...the area has been working, cleaning up, and rebuilding since the day the storm hit. In New Orleans proper, around 260,000 people of 460,000 are back...half of the city flooded very deep. In Metro New Orleans about 1.35 million of 1.45 million are back. The figure continues to climb daily, but, to be honest, I don't think we'll be completely back to normal for another 3 to 5 years. There is an article in today's paper that states that our Sewerage, Water, and Drainage System sustained over $5.7 Billion in damage and that repairing the system will take almost 25 years. It is hard to believe.


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## i_am_hydrogen (Dec 9, 2004)

The Great Chicago Fire, 1871

Looks like the aftermath of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.


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## bob rulz (Oct 20, 2005)

Hmmm....no major disasters here. We had sewage and water issues in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the Great Depression hit us harder than most of the country. But there's nothing specific. The Utah War almost turned into a disaster...when the U.S. Government sent troops to quell (false) reports of a rebellion within this Mormon territory way back in 1857 and 1858, but we evacuated the city and agreed to have our governor replaced as a compromise. So nothing happened there. Let's see...there was major flooding in 1983, and then a tornado ripped through downtown in 1999, although it only killed 1 person. Otherwise, nothing much.


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## paulatreides25 (Apr 29, 2006)

is not my city, but nanjing in china has suffered the most, 300,000 - 400,000 people died in a horrible massacre, that was insane, the hell itself.


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

JuanPaulo said:


> I think the worst disaster to hit my city (Quito, Ecuador, population 2,000,000) besides many historic earthquakes has been the eruption of Pichincha Volcano (city wraps around volcano) on a clear October morning in 1999. Luckily, no deaths were reported, but people had a freak show that day!!!
> 
> The city an volcano in peace as usual:
> 
> ...


WOW! That must have been really scary!


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## redspork02 (May 7, 2005)

hno: LOS ANGELES CATASTROPHES"'.

1942: The Zoot Suit Riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that erupted in Los Angeles, during World War II, between sailors and soldiers stationed in the city and Mexican American youths, recognized because of the zoot suits they favored.









1940: The LOS ANGELES FREEWAY SYSTEM
Perhaps no other urban areas in the world has embraced the automobile as passionately as the Greater Los Angeles.




















































1992: Rodney King Riots
On March 15, 1991 four police officers were arraigned on charges of assault with deadly weapon and use of excessive force. The police officers pleaded not guilty. April 29, 1992 when a mostly white jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist named Rodney KIng, after he fled from police. Thousands of people in South Central Los Angeles joined in acts of law-breaking compounded by existing racial tensions, including looting, arson and murder. In all, 43 people were killed during the riots.

































1994: NORTHRIDE EARTHQUAKE
Northridge, Los Angeles, California, January 17, 1994 (M.L.K. Holiday)
Magnitude 6.8; 60 people killed. 
In addition to killing 60 people, this early morning quake injured more than 7,000 people and left 20,000 homeless. More than 40,000 buildings were damaged in Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, and San Bernardino counties. Damages were estimated to be in the range of $20 billion (U.S.).


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## infernal (May 27, 2007)

I think the worst disaster in Atlanta was Shermans march to the sea.
He destroyed everything in his way except the Mansions that he liked.
Atlanta, Georgia, on November 15, 1864


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## gruber (Jun 11, 2004)

The Plague of 1630.

In the summer 1628 Milan closed the commerce with Swiss and German Sout-Western States, but the plague came in the city 2 years later with a war between French troups and Spanish one to controll some Piedmont provinces.

the first dead was Pietro Antonio Lovato, a merchant that bought some stuff in German. He died the 22 Ocotber 1629.

In the May 1630 the Swiss troups (know as Lanzichenecchi) enterd in the Milan territory and took the plague with them.

the 31 August Milan was abandoned and 72.000 people were dead.

Thanks, to the winter the plague lost power and was delcared ended in March 1631.

Milan in that year had more than 250.000 inhabitants.
the deads by plague were more than 165.000


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## Kolony (Jan 20, 2012)

EDMONTON: 


Spring 1915: 
Floods at the bottom of the river (at the location of Kinsmen Sports Centre) killed 5 people (there was a timber mill). 

July 31st, 1987: 
Black Friday Tornado. Hit southern Edmonton killing 27 and injuring 50 more. 

July 11th, 2004: 
Major Flooding. Over 100mm of rain pured onto the city. Many roads and underpasses were closed. 

August 2, 2010: 
A tornado partially touched the ground near the location of Capital-Ex. 

Septmeber 2010: 
House explosion. 4 People died.


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## calaguyo (Nov 28, 2008)

In the Philippines:

*Bataan Death March*



> The Bataan Death March (Tagalog: Martsa ng Kamatayan sa Bataan, Japanese: Batān Shi no Kōshin (バターン死の行進?))[1], which began on April 9, 1942, was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60-80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II.[3][4] *All told, approximately 2,500–10,000 Filipino and 100-650 American prisoners of war died before they could reach Camp O'Donnell.*[5][6]


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## minneapolis-uptown (Jun 22, 2009)

3 of the worst disasters in Minneapolis history:

*the Washburn A Mill explosion*









it killed 18 people and destroyed 5 mills, reducing Minneapolis' flour output by 1/3rd

today the ruins are a part of the Mill City Museum, with condos above it.









*35w bridge collapse*

13 people dead and 145 injured when a busy bridge falls during rush hour



















*North Minneapolis tornado*
2 dead, 30 injured, 5,000 homeless, $80,000,000 in damage.





































if you go on google maps you can spot to he path of the tornado


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## Mr_Dru (Dec 15, 2008)

Amsterdam 1992

El Al Flight 1862, a Boeing 747 crash in a suburb of Amsterdam.



















Reconstruction


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## j.brw (Mar 6, 2013)

Feb. 21 2011 Christchurch Earthquake + aftershocks.

A shallow 6.3 earthquake directly under the city killed 181 people and 
caused over $30 Billion in damage. 

Majority of inner city demolished, 1000's of suburbian homes written off due to damage - expected recovery 15 -20 years.

pre quake:
















Post Quake: (approx end of 2012 - half of those pictured have now also been demolished)


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## JayT (Sep 11, 2002)

^^
Christchurch is still suffering with several northern suburbs now being below sea level due to the earthquake is it not? I have seen images of entire suburbs which are now at or below sea level because the land has dropped.


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## JayT (Sep 11, 2002)

Kenwen said:


> japs wiped out the whole population of the city of nanjing of China in ww2, they killed people for fun.....n have race who killed the most.....rediculous madness people!!!!!!!400,000 people died


OMG I decided to do some research on this and have read some stories and facts. I never knew it happened. How could a so called modern country with peaceful religion and culture invade another and brutally massacre it's innocent inhabitants for pleasure and fun. 

There really isn't any hope for humanity if we keep behaving like this. 

I believe that the Universe around us is full of intelligent life. It's obvious to me now why we have never been contacted. Who would want to contact an intelligent being that delights in slaughtering it's own species for fun. 

Just disgusting!!!!! 

My 2c


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## 009 (Nov 28, 2007)

JayT said:


> OMG I decided to do some research on this and have read some stories and facts. I never knew it happened. How could a so called modern country with peaceful religion and culture invade another and brutally massacre it's innocent inhabitants for pleasure and fun.
> 
> There really isn't any hope for humanity if we keep behaving like this.
> 
> ...


:lol: that's a good point, after observing us, who would ever want to make contact


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## Mornnb (Dec 26, 2010)

Bushfires. Sydney is surrounded by forests. 2 months ago there was a major fire in the west in the Blue Mountains, which destroyed homes and covered the city in a thick black smoke.




























































































http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/nsw/bushfires-burn-out-of-control-20131017-2vp7c.html?aggregate=


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## j.brw (Mar 6, 2013)

JayT said:


> ^^
> Christchurch is still suffering with several northern suburbs now being below sea level due to the earthquake is it not? I have seen images of entire suburbs which are now at or below sea level because the land has dropped.


i don't think the land has actually dropped below sea level per say, but the eastern suburbs are more prone to flooding then they were prior to the quake. The majority of those areas have been red zoned/condemned due to liquefaction of the land. That is what happens when you build in a swamp i guess.


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## BlurredLines (Aug 1, 2013)

Well, I'm from Islamabad and since islamabad is a pretty new city the worst I can remember is the 2005 kashmir earthquake. Hundreds died in the city, an apartment building collapsed, the total toll in the entire country was around 50,000 people


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## BlurredLines (Aug 1, 2013)

The building that collapsed


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## Eric Offereins (Jan 1, 2004)

In Rotterdam the bombing during WW2 on 14 may 1940:

source and entire story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotterdam_Blitz










after cleanup:









But we recovered pretty well:


Ossip said:


>


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Our mayor, the politicians, and most of all the careless population


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## germanguy1 (Dec 7, 2013)

in my city bigest catastrophes is kids only play football and dance samba and pick bananas no go school


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