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Historic Disasters That Were Way Worse Than People Think

Khalid Elhassan April 6, 2020 33 min

Yellow River - 1887 Yellow River flood — 1887 Yellow River Flood. Hakai Magazine

16. Up To Half a Million Lives Lost

Raised beach in western Crete showing wave cut notch and sea caves raised about 9 meters by the Crete Earthquake of 365 AD. Wikimedia

The historian Ammianus Marcellinus described the Cretan Earthquake’s impact on Alexandria: “The solidity of the earth was made to shake … and the sea was driven away. The waters returning when least expected killed many thousands by drowning. Huge ships perched on the roofs of houses … hurled miles from the shore“.

Such descriptions were rare, however. The historical records lack a reliable contemporary narrative describing the damage elsewhere in the Mediterranean with the degree of attention that was common when Greco-Roman civilization and culture were at their height. There was no equivalent to Pliny the Younger’s description of the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD. What is known is that the devastation was massive and widespread, and that the loss of life was high, with estimated casualties between 300,000 to half a million.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.