THE BIGGEST NATURAL DISASTERS IN HISTORY

The CHICAGO FIRE   of 1871 , also called the Great Chicago Fire, burned from October 8 to October 10, 1871, and destroyed thousands of buildings, killed an estimated 300 people and caused an estimated $200 million in damages. Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in a barn and started the fire, but other theories hold that humans or even a meteor might have been responsible for the event that left an area of about four miles long and almost a mile wide of the Windy City , including its business district, in ruins. Following the blaze, reconstruction efforts began quickly and spurred great economic development and population growth.

Early in the morning of January 23rd , 1556, Ming Dynasty China was rocked by a massive earthquake that was epicentered in the Wei River Valley’s Huazhou District, in northern CHINA SHAANXI Province. The resultant damage , across a region stretching for hundreds of miles, was extensive, and the loss of life horrific . Because it occurred during the reign of the Jiaging Emperor , the earthquake is often referred to in traditional Chinese history as the Jiajing Earthquake.  Over half the population of Huazhou was killed, as every single home and building was destroyed in an upheaval that probably registered 8 on the Richter scale.

The first eruption of SANTA MARIA VOLCANOE in recorded history occurred on October 24, 1902. Before 1902 it had been dormant for at least five hundred years .  The eruption , with a VEI of 6, equivalent in magnitude to both Krakatau in Indonesia in 1883 and Katmai in Alaska in 1912, was the second biggest of the twentieth century.   The ash that subsequently fell devastated most of the 120,000 square miles of surrounding territory. Volcanic ash was detected as far away as San Francisco—a distance of 2,500 miles.  The  CRATER on the southwest flank was half a mile in width and a thousand feet deep .  At least 5,000 people were killed by the eruption. Many more died from a subsequent outbreak of malaria.  

On March 11, 2011 , a magnitude-9 EARTHQUAKE shook northeastern Japan, unleashing a savage tsunami. In Japan, residents are still recovering from the disaster . As of February 2017 , there were still about 150,000 evacuees who lost their homes ; 50,000 of them were still living in temporary housing,  Japan's Reconstruction Agency  said. The unexpected disaster was neither the largest nor the deadliest earthquake and  TSUNAMI   to strike this century . That record goes to the 2004 Banda Aceh earthquake and tsunami in Sumatra, a magnitude-9.1, which killed more than 230,000 people.