Natural Disasters That Changed The World

Over 100 natural disasters are described in this book, including some first-hand accounts of eyewitnesses, their causes, their impact on people and landscapes, and their significance for our developing understanding of the world around us. How should we respond to natural disasters? Some disasters can be predicted, while others cannot; some we should prepare for, others we cannot. We can take appropriate actions for smaller events like annual river floods. Very large-scale events, like volcanic explosions on the scale of Toba in northern Sumatra, occur once in a million years, and we cannot do anything to prepare for them. How do we go about living in such a hazardous world?