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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

5. Ash, Lava, and Lahars

A contemporary illustration depicting ash from Huaynaputina falling on nearby Arequipa. Wikimedia

Volcanic ash from the Huaynaputina eruption began falling down, and within a day, the city of Arequipa, 50 miles away, was covered by ash nearly a foot deep. Falling ash was recorded over 300 miles away, in Chile and Bolivia.

Smaller eruptions continued for the next couple of weeks, until the volcano finally went quiet on March 5^th. In the eruption, lava flowed about ten miles from the volcano, while lahars, or mud slides, made it all the way to the Pacific Ocean, 75 miles away.

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.