5. Earthquake in Pakistan
> Date: Oct. 8, 2005
> Est. death toll: 88,000
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck northern Pakistan, inflicting extensive damage in and around the city of Muzaffarabad. Entire villages were leveled and more than 32,000 buildings collapsed across much of the country and into northern India, where thousands were killed or injured. Parts of Afghanistan and Bangladesh were also rattled. About four million people lost their homes in the quake.
4. Cyclone Gorky, storm surge in Bangladesh
> Date: April 29-30, 1991
> Est. death toll: 139,000
Cyclone Gorky made landfall in Bangladesh on the evening of April 29, bringing with it tidal surges as high as 30 feet. The highly destructive category-5 storm hovered over the country’s lowlands for hours, dumping a massive amount of rainfall on impoverished communities living at or near sea level. Cyclone shelters prevented more deaths than would have occurred, but there weren’t enough of them to meet demand, leaving many people with nowhere to flee.
3. Cyclone Nargis, storm surge in Myanmar
> Date: May 2-5, 2008
> Est. death toll: 138,000
After forming into a massive category-4 storm over the Bay of Bengal, Cyclone Nargis plowed into Myanmar (Burma) with sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. The storm path traveled over the country’s heavily populated city of Yangon (Rangoon). The cyclone caused extensive flooding in the city and nearby coastal plains.
2. Earthquake in Haiti
> Date: Jan. 12, 2010
> Est. death toll: 160,000
The 2010 Haiti earthquake is the only natural disaster on this list to have hit the Western Hemisphere. The magnitude 7.0 quake toppled homes and commercial buildings. It was followed by dozens of aftershocks. One-story homes topped with sheet metal fared better than structures with concrete rooftops, such as apartment complexes, churches, commercial centers, and government buildings that lacked earthquake-resistant features.
1. Earthquake, tsunami in the Indian Ocean
> Date: Dec. 26, 2004
> Est. death toll: 228,000
An enormous undersea fault line off Indonesia’s western coast slipped, causing one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The 9.1-magnitude quake sent a portion of the seafloor shooting upwards as much as 131 feet, causing a massive tsunami that caused rapid and destructive coastal flooding in nine countries. Within 20 minutes of the quake, 100-foot-tall waves drowned the shoreline of Banda Aceh at the northeastern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, which bore the brunt of the disaster. Successive large waves struck the coasts of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and Somalia, and caused deaths as far away as South Africa.
