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CowperKettle

6:00 PM

The Boxing day tsunami killed 200 000 people

Cerberus

The one in 2004?

CowperKettle

Floods are somewhy the most murderous

Yes.

Cerberus

Only tsunami's, I should think, usually?

CowperKettle

There's a list of most deadly natural disasters in history in Wikipedia, and most of them are floods, river floods in China.

Robusto

Mar 17 '11 at 23:51, by Robusto

Oh, by the way, this whole thing in Japan reminds me of a great quote from Will Durant:
"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice."

Cerberus

6:02 PM

CowperKettle

Cerberus

This was a regular flood, killing some 1400 people ↑.

CowperKettle

List of natural disasters by death toll

A natural disaster is a sudden event that always causes widespread destruction, major collateral damage or loss of life, brought about by forces other than the acts of human beings. A natural disaster might be caused by earthquakes, flooding, volcanic eruption, landslide, hurricanes etc. To be classified as a disaster, it will have profound environmental effect and/or human loss and frequently causes financial loss. == Ten deadliest natural disasters by highest estimated death toll excluding epidemics and famines == This list takes into account only the highest estimated death toll for ea...

My memory failed me. THere are also earthquakes, they are also very deadly.

Cerberus

Hmm I wonder why Chinese floods are so lethal.

CowperKettle

@Robusto I listened to his History of Civilization several times, very interesting, but audio quality was poor. It was converted from cassettes

Robusto

6:07 PM

@CowperKettle The Day the World Exploded

CowperKettle

2022 Hunga Tonga eruption and tsunami

A large eruption of Hunga Tonga, a volcanic island in Tonga in the Pacific Ocean, occurred on 15 January 2022. The eruption caused tsunamis in Tonga and Fiji, and tsunami warnings were issued in Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the United States, Canada and Chile. == Background == After being relatively inactive since 2014, the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted on 20 December 2021, sending particulates into the stratosphere, and a large plume of ash that was visible from Nuku'alofa, the capital city of Tonga (about 70 km from the volcano). The Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) in Wellington...

@Robusto Yes, Krakatoa was famous ))

Robusto

I saw a science video on the Mt. St. Helens explosion (1993?) in which the presenter compared volcano sizes. Mt. St. Helens was the size of a baseball, Krakatoa was the size of a basketball. Then he represented the last Yellowstone explosion as the large desk those two balls were resting on.

That last Yellowstone eruption dumped 2 meters of volcanic ash 1300 km away.

Cerberus

That was very long ago, wasn't it?

Robusto

Like 630,000 years ago, I think.

But Yellowstone seems to explode about every 600,000 years, so ...

> The last supereruption of the Yellowstone Caldera, the Lava Creek eruption 640,000 years ago,[36] ejected approximately 1,000 cubic kilometres (240 cu mi) of rock, dust and volcanic ash into the atmosphere.[3]

CowperKettle

Oh, Yellowstone, the best dream of US haters in Russia. Now and then they start predicting that it's on the brink.

Robusto

6:21 PM

It's interesting how the US distance system (miles) and the metric system (kilometers) seems to be represented in the Fibonacci series.

800 miles ~= 1300 km.

So it's fairly easy to calculate in your head.

The higher you go, the more accurate the relationship.

I should say 8 miles ~= 13 km. Then you can just multiply by two orders of magnitude.

Mitch

@Cerberus Lots of people?

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, places like Europe and the coasts of North America also have lots of people packed together.

Mitch

@Robusto starts packing bags

CowperKettle

Fibonacci series is too complicated for me.

Mitch

@Cerberus maybe it's the Chinese character that deserves it?

Cerberus

6:29 PM

Tsk.

What character?

They have tens of thousands.

Robusto

@Mitch China spells its name with two characters. Together they mean "Middle Kingdom."

Mitch

@CowperKettle easy to remember 1 2 3 5 8 13 21

@Robusto the Chinese word for opportunity is made of two characters meaning:

Machine

And

Meeting

Thanks Google translate

That's not what all the Harvard Business School people say

With there power breakfasts and disruption

Robusto

Interesting how so many civilizations think they are exactly in the middle of the Earth: middongeard (Middle Earth in OE), Mediterannean (Middle Earth from the Roman Empire), Middle Kingdom for China. Probably there are others.

CowperKettle