In the early morning hours of May 11, 1934, a black storm unprecedented in human history occurred in the western prairie region of the United States. The storm blew for 3 days and 3 nights, forming an east-west length of 2400 kilometers, north-south width of 1440 kilometers, 3400 meters high, rapidly moving huge black storm belt. Wherever the storm passed, streams were cut off, wells dried up, fields cracked, crops withered, livestock died of thirst, and millions of people were displaced. This is a historic punishment of human civilization by nature. Due to the continuous reclamation of land resources by developers and deforestation, the soil has been seriously eroded by wind, and successive droughts have aggravated the phenomenon of land sanding. Under the action of high-altitude air currents, dust particles and sand were swept up, and strands of dust rose into the sky, forming a huge gray and black storm belt. The New York Times ran a front-page story on the day. The attack of the black storm to the United States of America's agricultural and animal husbandry production has brought a serious impact, so that the original drought has suffered a large area of wheat withered and died, so that the United States grain market fluctuations at that time, the impact of the development of the economy. At the same time, the black storm all the way to the looting, the fertile soil surface layer scraped away, revealing barren sandy soil layer, so that the victim of the soil structure of the place of change, a serious constraint on the development of agricultural production in the affected areas in the future.
Two: Peru avalanche
Peru is located in the western part of South America, has a sprawling coastline of more than 3,000 kilometers. It is also a mountainous country, with mountains accounting for half of the country's total area, and the famous Vascalan peaks of the Andes, with their steep slopes and cliffs. The mountains are covered with snow all year round, and the "White Death" often falls here. on May 31, 1970, a big avalanche occurred here, destroying the city of Jungai under the peak of Vascalian, causing the death of 20,000 residents and affecting an area of 23 square kilometers. At this time, in the cold region, many people had fallen asleep in their sleep.
Suddenly, there was a thunderous noise in the distance. Immediately afterward, the earth, like a ship in the waves, suddenly went out of control and was trembling wildly and violently. Immediately after, and from the distance came a heavenly rattling sound. It was so deafening that it awakened the people from their sound sleep. Those who were reading, entertaining and working at night were stunned by the sudden noise. People did not know what had happened, and the houses collapsed to the east and west, creaking and crumbling.
It was then that people realized that the earthquake had struck.
Those who had not yet escaped from the house were crushed by the collapsing bricks and stones. Outside, in the cold wind and darkness, no one could see anyone, but only heard the rumbling sound of the collapse.
Suddenly, there was another thunderous noise from far away, coming from the direction of the Vascalian peaks. A moment later, the landslide, snowflakes flying, gusty winds.
It turned out that a large-scale huge avalanche induced by the earthquake broke out.
The earthquake cracked the rocks on the mountain peaks, shook loose, shattered, and the seismic wave of the mountain ice and snow crushed. Instantly, the snow and ice and debris as if a huge waterfall, close to the cliffs pouring down, almost to the speed of free fall collapsed more than nine hundred meters.
The city of Ronggai, which had just been hit by the earthquake, was in a state of shock, and was swept away by the ice and snow dragons that came with it, most of whom were crushed to death under the snow and ice, and many suffocated as they traveled quickly.
This was by far the largest and most tragic avalanche disaster in the world.
Three: Bangladesh Mega Floods
In July 1987, Bangladesh experienced one of the biggest floods in its history. Days of torrential rains and gusty winds caused a sudden natural disaster that overwhelmed the unprepared population. In just two months, 47 of Bangladesh's 64 districts were hit by floods and torrential rains, resulting in more than 2,000 deaths, 25,000 livestock drowned, more than 2 million tons of food destroyed, 20,000 kilometers of roads and 772 bridges and culverts washed away, 10 million houses collapsed, a large area of crops were damaged, and the affected people numbered 20 million people Bangladesh is located to the north of the Bay of Bengal, belonging to the Ganges Plain Bangladesh is located north of the Bay of Bengal and belongs to the southeastern part of the Ganges Plain, with the Eastern Ghats in the west, the Arakan Range in the east and the Himalayas in the north. There are 230 rivers in the country, and every year the flooding of the rivers causes huge losses in Bangladesh. Coupled with the fact that it is located in the monsoon zone, the southwest monsoon winds blowing from the Indian Ocean rush towards the low-pressure zone with warm and saturated water vapor. When blocked by mountain ranges, it rains immediately. This makes it difficult for Bangladesh, which is flat and low-lying, to escape flooding.
The floods have increased the poverty level of the people and the United Nations has launched two food supply programs. One program alone costs $20 million a year to implement.
This is a huge drain on the government's attention. Nature has its own irresistible forces, but its destruction can be minimized through strong preventive measures. in September 1987, Bangladesh's Minister of Irrigation, Water Development and Flood Control, Anis Islam Mahmood, said after the event, "If we, along with India and Nepal, can make effective use of the region's water resources, i.e., increase the flow of the river in winter and control the floods in the rainy season, then we will be able to make a better use of our water resources. If we had reached an agreement with India and Nepal on effective utilization of water resources in the region, i.e., increasing the flow of rivers in winter, and controlling floods in the rainy season, we could have reduced the severity of the flood disaster that occurred here in July and August." Had his words been realized earlier, tens of millions of people would not have been left homeless.
The floods have not only brought poverty and hunger to the people, but have also bred a lot of germs. Various diseases have become prevalent in the affected areas and about 800,000 people have contracted dysentery and nearly a hundred have lost their lives. This has undoubtedly added to the misery of the people of Bangladesh.
How to get rid of the heavy disaster brought about by the floods and how to ease the crisis in this poor South Asian country has become a major problem to be solved by the government of Bangladesh, which has also attracted the attention of the world.
Four: India's "black demon" bubonic plague
Rats, not only to steal food, it brings the greatest danger to mankind is the spread of germs, the history of mankind has many times the epidemic of the plague, the global bubonic plague occurred three times, the number of deaths of more than a hundred million people, a lot of towns and cities extinction. According to literature, the number of people who died of plague exceeded the total number of people who died in all wars in history. It is no wonder that people call this disease the "black demon". In September and October 1994, India was struck by a deadly plague. On the day after the festival of Quan, 30 patients with similar conditions were admitted to the hospital in the city of Surat. At first the doctors did not realize that the patients were suffering from bubonic plague. But it was only after a series of deaths and news of a plague epidemic in Ladur, near Mahashtra, that it was realized that a catastrophe had struck. At once, the railway stations and bus stations were crowded with thousands of fleeing people. 300,000 citizens of Surat fled India in all directions, while taking the plague and this fear to all parts of the country.
In less than two weeks, this terrible plague had spread to seven states of India and the administrative district of New Delhi. The arrival of the plague was a blow to the unprepared Indian authorities. The Indian Ministry of Health had to ask for support from the World Health Organization and other countries to meet the urgent need.
The bubonic plague epidemic caused extreme fear among the people. This fear spread rapidly around the world like a fire. Many countries suspended all dealings with India. The economic loss to India was incalculable. According to statistics, tens of billions of dollars were spent on the treatment and prevention of the plague.
People can't help but wonder why the plague has become so prevalent in India again. Experts agree that the outbreak of the plague is the result of extremely dirty conditions. It is said that the city of Surat is the dirtiest city in India, slums, bazaars, streets and alleys, piles of garbage, the stench of the sky. During the plague epidemic, as much as 1,400 tons of garbage was removed every day. The garbage everywhere has become a breeding ground for rats.
The elimination of rats should be the whole of mankind's **** with the mission. Countries have established a rat extermination company and other specialized organizations, the United Nations has set up a corresponding anti-rat agencies. The whole earth is to the rat to start a difficult battle. Although mankind has not yet found a way to completely eliminate the rat, but the continuous development of science will be able to overcome the rat, which is what we all firmly believe.
Five: Poisonous gas at the bottom of a lake in Cameroon
The Pameta Plateau is a beautiful and mesmerizing place.
On the night of August 21, 1986, people were sleeping soundly when a loud bang suddenly pierced the sky. Many people have not waited to find out what happened, was taken away from the precious life. That night, a volcanic lake, the Nyos Volcanic Lake, located in the northwestern part of Cameroon, Africa, 400 kilometers away from the capital city of Yaounde on the Pameta Plateau, suddenly erupted a large amount of poisonous gases from the bottom of the lake, which poured down along the northern slope of the mountain as if it were a flood, and attacked a number of villages in the low valley area. Villages ......
Early the next morning, the crystal blue Nyos River on the beautiful slopes of the Cameroonian highlands suddenly turned blood red, as if it were a festering and angry red eye. Dead livestock and wild animals lay everywhere in the grass. In the villages on the shores of Lake Nyos, the houses, churches, and barns were intact, but there was not a soul walking in the streets. Going into the houses to find out what was going on, a shocking sight met the eye; there were all dead people. What a sad sight it was! There were men, women, children and even babies among the dead.
From the mouth of the survivors, people know the tragedy occurred, accompanied by last night's flying sound, there is a ghostly cylindrical steam from the lake, the entire lake boiled up, the waves attacked the lake shore, straight into the sky, up to 80 meters, and then like a column of cloud smoke into the valley below. At this time, a gust of wind from the lake whistled up, clamped with a suffocating stench will be this smoke cloud pushed to the four neighboring towns.
According to incomplete statistics, at least 1,740 people were killed by the gas and a large number of livestock were killed in the disaster, and the village of Gamnio, which is the closest to the lake, was the most seriously affected. Of the village's 650 residents, only six survived.
This poisonous event immediately drew a great deal of attention from various countries. The Nyos Volcanic Lake, therefore, became more famous around the world. Japan, Britain, the United States, France, Italy and other countries, have quickly sent an emergency rescue team, and sent experts to the Lake Nyos eruption of poisonous gas composition of the actual measurement, the murderer is who? Experts struggled to find the answer.
After a period of hard work, finally identified the composition of the toxic gases spewed out of Lake Nyos. The experts agreed that the gas spewed out was mainly carbon dioxide, while the stench came from hydrogen sulfide. While conquering and demanding from nature, people have also been mercilessly retaliated by nature. The lake bottom gas this nature caused sudden disaster, let human beings taste the bitter fruit ....
Six: London smog
There is the world's "fog" known as London, England, when the turn of spring and fall, where often shrouded in fog, like a layer of mystery veil. According to statistics, London's fog days, up to 70 or 80 times a year, an average of 5 days, there is a "fog day". Whenever the fog descends, the fog not only affects the traffic, causing accidents, but also directly endangers people's health, and even threaten people's lives.
Today's London is a cleaner city than it was in 1952. In those days, London had coal-fired power stations and many factories not far from the city center. Most households burned coal to heat their homes. Coal-powered steam locomotives pulled trains into the capital. There were few controls on the emissions from cars and trucks.
On December 4, 1952, one of the world's worst "smog" events occurred in the city of London: a continuous fog that did not clear for almost a week, with soot and gases from factories and households accumulating in the lower air, shrouding the whole city in thick fog and plunging it into a greyness. During this period, more than 4,700 people died of respiratory diseases; after the fog lifted, more than 8,000 people died. This is the world shocked "fog city disaster".
In the early morning of December 3, 1952, the London Meteorological Office reported that a peak had passed through during the night, and that temperatures could reach 5.6°C at midday, with a relative humidity of about 70%. It was a rare good day for the local area - a lovely winter day.
On this day, a wind blew across England from the North Sea, lifting the clouds of fog that had been rising from the chimneys of factories and city dwellers' homes in the English Midlands, so that the air became very fresh and pleasant.
But no one could have known that disaster was on the way.
By evening, London was on the southeastern edge of a huge high-pressure cyclone, with stronger north winds blowing clockwise around the anticyclone. The next day, December 4, the center of this cyclone had reached a few hundred kilometers west of London and was moving southeast along its usual path. The winds became lighter in the morning and clouds obscured almost the entire sky. By midday, the clouds blocked out all of the sun and a haze filled the sky over London, with the Met Office temperature gauge reading 3.3°C and relative humidity rising to 82 percent.
On December 5, an anomaly emerged. The anemometer at the London Weather Station measured a very strange measurement - the wind speed reading was completely static. According to expert estimates at the time, the wind speed at this point was no more than 3 kilometers per hour.
London was in a state of dead wind, the air accumulated a large amount of soot, which did not persist, and the wind was too weak to take away the forest of factory chimneys and the family's emission of various harmful soot. As a result, a great deal of soot fell from the air, and the beautiful Thames Valley was enveloped in smoke. A small apprentice working on a boat was brought to tears by the invasion of smoke; it penetrated doors and homes in the Greenwich district, making people suffer ......
The cloud of smoke hovered over the city for five days, becoming progressively dirtier and more toxic. The amount of smog in the air in central London increased almost tenfold.
The smog left thousands of victims suffering from bronchitis, asthma and other diseases affecting the lungs. In the end, by the time the smog cleared on December 10, an estimated 4,000 people had died, most of them elderly.
Today, the main cause of smog is pollution from emissions from motor vehicles. Smog has been suspended in the air in major cities like Los Angeles and Mexico City. The use of unleaded gasoline and the installation of catalytic converters for motor vehicle exhaust can help reduce the risk of health damage from this pollution. However, this is still a serious problem to be solved.
Seven: Mysterious Disasters in Bermuda
Of all the mysterious events that have occurred at sea this century, one of the most famous and puzzling is the string of airplane and ship disappearances that have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle. It is said that since 1945, hundreds of airplanes and ships have mysteriously disappeared in these waters. The number of disappearances is so great that the world cannot believe that they are all accidental. The so-called Bermuda Triangle refers to a triangular area of sea stretching from the Bermuda Islands in the north to Puerto Rico in the south and Florida in the west, with an area of about one million square kilometers. Because of this piece of sea disappearances stacked up, the world will call it "the black hole of the earth", "the devil's triangle". On October 21, 1971, a transport plane, the Super Constellation, loaded with frozen beef, flew over an exploration ship working on the surface of the sea. The crew watched it fly for a minute or so, when suddenly the plane plunged into the sea as if it had been sucked in by the sea water. The crew saw nothing afterward, and found neither oil traces nor bodies or wreckage. The only thing that confirms the disappearance of the plane is a large piece of beef with blood floating on the sea surface.
The disappearance of the airplane "Super Constellation" is just one of the many disappearances in this mysterious sea. According to statistics, more than 100 airplanes have disappeared over these waters between 1840 and 1945, and even more ships have vanished.
The place that the world calls the "graveyard of the sea" is the Bermuda Triangle, which has attracted the attention of many scientists around the world.
The disappearance of the Super Constellation, like countless other disappearances, can be summarized in a single sentence - there are no clues. Any ship, airplane or person that goes missing in the Bermuda Triangle is unlikely to find any survivors or any wreckage, and therein lies the mystery.
All those who have tried to come up with a logical explanation for the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle have been confronted with a paradox they cannot escape. Then there are theories of the "supernatural", trying to unravel the mystery of the century. Some researchers have linked the disasters in the Bermuda Triangle to aliens and flying saucers. Their thesis is that there is an alien undersea flying saucer base here. This is because countless UFO phenomena have been observed here over the years. These missing airplanes and ships had been swept away by the occupants of flying saucers. At a scientific conference in Bonn, renowned space scientist Dr. Jaffrey Sturubin revealed their research using space-age technology in conjunction with ancient records. He believes that the truth about the disappearance of airplanes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle has now come to light, and that a 400-year-old meteorite is to blame.
In 1979, a joint expedition organized by American and French scientists discovered a huge underwater pyramid on the seabed of the Bermuda Sea. According to the photos sent by Charles Berlitz, the honorary director of the Miami Museum in the United States, this underwater pyramid can be seen to be even more gigantic than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. There are two black holes in the tower through which seawater passes at high speed.
The discovery of the underwater pyramid, so that the Bermuda Triangle mystery has become more mysterious and unpredictable, it in the end is man-made or natural formation? What is the relationship between it and the continuous occurrence of Bermuda sea disaster and air disaster? These are to be further explored by people. Bermuda this black hole, so far has not seen the bottom.
Eight: Tunguska explosion
Tunguska, located in the former Soviet Union, Siberia, near Lake Baikal. 80 years ago, there was an extremely violent explosion, the destructive power of the equivalent of 500 atomic bombs and a few hydrogen bombs.
In the early morning hours of June 30, 1908, a rare tragedy befell the nomads of the remote forest areas of Siberia. Semyonov, who was lucky enough to escape the disaster, recalled: "There was an intense fire in the sky, and in an instant a huge fireball almost covered half the sky. A loud explosion was followed by a gale ...... "The shockwave from the blast traveled all the way to central Europe, where seismic observatories in Potsdam, Germany, and Cambridge, England, and even Washington and Java got the same record.
The Tsarist regime in Russia was in a state of turmoil at the time and was unable to organize an investigation. The explosion was loosely referred to as the "Tunguska explosion". After the October Revolution, the Soviet regime sent a team of physicists, led by Kulik, to the Tungus region in 1921. They claimed that the explosion was caused by a huge meteorite. However, they never found the deep crater where the meteorite fell, nor did they find any meteorites. Only dozens of flat-bottomed shallow craters were found. Therefore, the "meteorite" is only a speculation at the time, the lack of evidence, Kulik and twice led the team to visit Tunguska, and aerial survey, found that the explosion caused by the destruction of an area of more than 20,000 square kilometers. At the same time people also found a lot of strange phenomena, such as the explosion of the center of the trees did not all fall, just the leaves were burned; explosion of the growth rate of trees in the region accelerated; the width of its annual rings from 0.4-2 mm increased to more than 5 mm; explosion of the region of the reindeer have got a strange skin disease date mange and so on. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, Kulik threw in the towel and gave up his precious life in the war against fascism. The former Soviet Union on the Tunguska explosion of the expedition, was also forced to suspend. After World War II, the Soviet physicist Kasayev visited Japan, December 1945, he arrived in Hiroshima, where the United States dropped the atomic bomb four months earlier. Looking at the ruins of Hiroshima, Kasaev was reminded of Tunguska, and it was clear that there were numerous similarities:
The center of the blast was devastated, and the trees stood upright but did not fall.
The deaths of people and animals in the explosion were caused by burns from nuclear radiation.
The explosion produced the same mushroom cloud shape, except that the Tunguska was much larger.
In particular, the photos taken in Tunguska of the dead trees and charred branches looked very similar to those on Hiroshima. As a result, Kasaev came up with a bold idea; he believed that the Tunguska explosion was a nuclear-powered spaceship piloted by aliens, which malfunctioned during landing and caused a nuclear explosion.
This theory immediately provoked a strong reaction in the Soviet scientific community. There was a lack of supporters and opponents. Sorotov and others further hypothesized that the craft came to the region to obtain fresh water for Lake Baikal. It was also pointed out that the mangy skin disease of reindeer in the Tungus region was very similar to the skin disease of local cattle caused by radiation exposure after the U.S. nuclear tests in New Mexico in 1945, and that the accelerated growth of trees and the development of hereditary mutations in plants and insects in the Tungus region were the same as those that occurred after U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific islands.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Frontier sent several expeditions to the Tunguska region to investigate the nuclear explosions and insisted on the "meteorite theory" people claimed to have found evidence in their favor, and both sides could not convince anyone. In the absence of a central crater, it was argued that the fall was a comet, which could only have produced a dust explosion and not a central crater.
In 1973, some American scientists came up with a new insight into this, suggesting that the explosion was caused by a cosmic black hole. A small black hole orbiting over the Pacific Ocean between Iceland and Newfoundland triggered the explosion. But little is known about the nature and characteristics of black holes. The existence of "small black holes" is still in doubt. As a result, there is not enough evidence for such an idea. Until today, the mystery of the Tunguska explosion has not been solved.
Nine: Chilean tsunami
Chile is said to be God's creation of the world after the "last piece of mud". Perhaps it is for this reason that the earth's crust here has always been less than tranquil. According to modern plate tectonics, Chile is a subduction zone where the Pacific and South American plates collide with each other, and is located on the Pacific Rim volcanic belt. The special geological structure has caused it to sit on top of a highly unstable surface, where volcanoes have been erupting since ancient times, earthquakes have been occurring one after another, and tsunamis have been frequent.
From the early morning of May 21, in Chile's Puerto Montt near the seabed, suddenly occurred in the world's seismic history of rare strong earthquake. The magnitude of the high, the duration of the long, wide area is rare, before and after a month, *** has occurred in different magnitudes of the earthquake 225 times. The magnitude of the magnitude of 7 or more there are as many as 10 times, of which there are 3 times 8.
When the May 21 earthquake just occurred, the vibration is still relatively mild, the earth just gently trembling. Unlike in the past, it happened continuously. Then the magnitude was higher than once, the vibration became more and more intense. In the midst of the panic, people fell down and staggered to the outdoors.
However, the continuous shaking for two consecutive days paralyzed people with disbelief. Because the earthquake lasted longer and did little damage, people weren't as fearful as they were at the beginning, and some even moved into ruptured houses. Of course, there were also a significant number of people who were fearful that a bigger earthquake was on the way.
Sure enough, at around 19:00 on May 22, the earthquake was suddenly loud and deafening. Seismic waves like thousands of tanks rumbling open, and like hundreds of airplanes from the air, whistling from the bottom of the sea in Monte Harbor. Soon the earth shook violently. At one moment, cracks appeared in the land; at another, parts of it suddenly bulged as if a giant had rolled over. In an instant, the ocean was rolling violently, the canyons were whistling miserably, the rocks of the coast were crumbling, and debris littered the beaches ......
The quake, the world's most powerful and intense earthquake, had a magnitude of 8.9, an intensity of 11 degrees, and affected an area of 800 kilometers in an ellipse. After the earthquake, a large tsunami ensued. The tsunami waves swept across the Pacific coast at hundreds of kilometers per hour, destroying the Chilean cities of Concepción, Talcahuano and Chillán, leaving more than 2 million people homeless.
Ten: Tangshan Earthquake
On July 28, 1976, at 3:42 p.m. Beijing time in China, at 118.2 degrees east longitude and 39.6 degrees north latitude, in the Earth's crust at a depth of 16 kilometers from the ground, a massive earthquake 400 times stronger than the atomic bomb that exploded in Hiroshima, Japan, occurred. The approved magnitude of the earthquake was announced again a few days later: Mst 7.8.
Tangshan, an industrial city of millions of people, was reduced to rubble in this massive earthquake, which was not forecast. The death toll was as high as 240,000 people.
The 40th parallel is known as the "ominous line of terror". Here, such as the United States, San Francisco, Portugal, Lisbon, Japan, Tokachi offshore and so on countless large earthquakes occurred. This time the earthquake this devil once again raided the 39.6 degrees north latitude - Tangshan became its victim.
Water, the first alarm to mankind.
Since late July, the reefs of Beidaihe have been engulfed by seawater; and Caijiaobao and other waters closer to Tangshan, the former blue-blue seawater has become muddy and yellow. A snorkeling in Qinhuangdao under the sea water people saw a bright band of light underwater, like a restless fire dragon.
Late at night on July 27, nature awakened one step ahead of mankind issued a final call for disaster!
Changli County to see the melon farmers see more than 200 meters high in the sky suddenly bright, the ground illuminated white, watermelon leaves, vines illuminated clearly visible, such as the dawn.
3:42 Xu, Tangshan appeared strong several times over the blue flash, the ground wind whistling, thunder boom, the earth shook wildly, a few seconds later, Tangshan broken, a dead silence, gray dust fog thickly shrouded Tangshan, the whole Tangshan without a sound.
In just a few seconds, more than 650,000 houses collapsed and were severely damaged in the city of Tangshan and the countryside. The vast majority of the people of Tangshan suffered from this catastrophe while they were sleeping.
Among the many miraculous survivors was a woman who escaped from her hotel only two seconds before it broke in half and collapsed. Fearing an even bigger quake, most of the people of Tangshan moved to tents set up on the highway outside the city for their temporary shelter.